SoapZone Community Message Board

dark chocolate covered peanuts from Dollar General. I'd gotten to almost the end of the bag and left them on the kitchen table; the next day, I saw that there was a single peanut on the table and the rest of the bag was empty. I asked Dad why he ate my chocolate-covered peanuts...he had no idea what I was talking about. He jokingly accused me of "sleep-eating". Late last week, I'd opened a "salad kit" (BBQ chophouse) that came with croutons. The bag wasn't very full; it was just enough for two servings. So I ate half of it one day for lunch and again, I left the remaining croutons on the table. Again, they were gone the next morning. Again, Dad had no idea what I was talking about.

So I Googled "can mice climb up kitchen tables" and was informed that oh my, yes, mice were good climbers. That surprised me...I thought they were strictly floor dwellers. But now I thought I had some idea what was going on. Our house is old and leaky and located in a semi-rural area; almost every year we wind up with a mouse or two in the kitchen (fortunately I've never seen them in any other part of the house. The mice at my aunt's house, just a few minutes away, like to hang out, and eventually expire, in her attic). It's been a while since I saw a mouse inside though...I think that while Leo didn't hunt the mice*, he was at least a deterrent for some of them.

* early on in Leo's time with us, I saw him calmly eating his dinner just a couple feet away from a mouse caught in a mousetrap behind the fridge. When I questioned him about it, he just looked at me like "woman, are you kidding me? Nice, clean, plentiful cat food that I don't have to work for and you want me to catch a mouse? Besides, that one's already been caught"

So Dad baited the old trap behind the fridge--and left some french fries on a plate on the kitchen table-- and sure enough, around midnight last night while I was still up and in the living room, I heard a SNAP!. Aw nuts...I was going to have to go in and deal with a deceased Mickey. I've only had to empty a mousetrap once...the mouse was still alive. The trap had come down on across his back, and he was flopping around, trying to escape. I was nearly hysterical as I carried the trap outside, setting him free and apologizing through tears, telling him I hoped he'd somehow be OK while secretly convinced he was going to be Henry's* dinner.

* we have a hawk that likes to perch on one of the wires outside our house. Dad has christened him Henry. Apparently we both like to name the wildlife.

Getting back to last night...I crept in the kitchen and was surprised to see the cutest little field mouse lying next to, but not IN, the mousetrap. I couldn't quite tell if he was alive or dead as he wasn't moving but he didn't look bloody or broken or anything. I retrieved some old ice tongs we never use and an empty container of potato salad and grabbed Mickey's tail with the tongs...he was alive. He struggled but weakly. I dropped him in the container, grabbed my phone, got a picture (so I could prove to Dad I was right about the food thief being a mouse; a few french fries weren't missing but were scattered on the table like Mickey didn't have enough strength to drag them to the floor) and stepped outside to release him. I took him to the very back of the property and gently dumped him out near a tree where he could maybe take refuge in either the hollowed out spot in the trunk or the bushes growing up around the tree. He made no move to bolt to safety...he might've wound up as Henry's midnight snack but at least he was out of the house.

Oh, and on the way back, I remembered...I had on a tank top but had taken off my shorts. Dad had turned the a/c on yesterday but set it at 80 (like *that* was going to do much good), so I'd stripped down after he went to bed. Good thing the neighborhood houses aren't set too closely together (our back yard goes back pretty far and abuts the back yard of the neighbor on the street behind us), nor are most of my neighbors out at night!