Thursday, May 28, 2015

Mice. Why did it have to be mice?

The first thing I did was pour some wine and turn up the Earth, Wind & Fire.

Of course, I'm talking about finding mouse poo in my silverware drawer again. Again again. For the fourth time in 2 months.

My Guy has set traps. I've shoved foil in every crevice of the cabinet boxes and sprayed peppermint oil everywhere. And yet?

And yet. The lure of the tortilla chips in the bread drawer is just too strong. And you can't make a trip to the bread drawer without first shitting all over the silverware drawer. Duh.

I will admit this freely: I got myself good and drunk while tearing my kitchen apart for the fourth time in recent memory. I could try to blame it on fumes from the bleach wipes, but let's be honest: it was the wine, and then the bloody mary. Oh, and the bitterness. Don't forget the bitterness.

My impaired state did give me a special insight, though. It seems so odd that this evil force would continue to rise up again and again. This isn't how the world works at all. I have to believe that good eventually wins out or my little heart will explode.

But ... what if the mice aren't evil? What if our little rodent brethren are ... the good guys?

This would make me the bad guy. The antagonist, if you will. I am the evil doer, the force trying to stop hardworking mice folk who just need a tortilla chip to feed their families. I have no excuse for attempting to hoard all the tortilla chips. None.

It was at this point in my drunken introspection that I realized: I am Hans Gruber.

My house is the set of "Die Hard," and the mouse is Bruce Willis, walking barefoot across broken glass, trying to get to the tortilla chips. That makes me evil Hans Gruber, being all German and bad.

Or maybe the scene playing out is "The Lego Movie," and I'm maniacal President Business. The mouse and his pals are the regular Lego folk, and I'm attempting to squash their dreams. Everything is not awesome!

But no. My house is now "The Sound of Music." The mice are the Von Trapp family, except instead of climbing over the Alps to freedom, they are traversing my kitchen cabinets, looking for freedom in the form of slightly stale tortilla chips. And I'm a Nazi! I'm like Liesl's dirty Nazi boyfriend, Rolfe, standing up for all that is wrong and Fascist and khaki.

I may be slightly overreacting. I'm probably just The Six-Fingered Man from "The Princess Bride," and the 1 lone, poor little mouse is Inigo Montoya. Last fall, I killed his father in a trap, and now he must get vengeance by eating all my tortilla chips and/or giving me the plague by pooping on my cereal spoon. Except that I don't speak mouse and therefore can't decipher it when he's all, "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! You kill my father! Prepare to die!" So it kind of loses some of its impact.

Or, maybe my meager kitchen is the site of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Our little mouse friend is Indiana Jones, trying to keep the tortilla chips out of the wrong hands.

Try not to be jealous of my mad Photoshop skillz.

And yet again, I am a Nazi. Fitting, no? Mouse Indiana gets the tortilla chips, but then I throw away what's left of the bag, and then where is he? Maybe the big garbage can in the garage is my home's equivalent of the gigantic warehouse at the end of the movie, where stuff gets stashed, never to be seen again. And I admit, when I first saw the mouse poo? It did feel like my face was melting.

I would be willing to proclaim myself the bad guy, to own up to being in the wrong if it meant no more mouse poo. Don't get me wrong - I'm mega psyched that Indiana Mouse has finally stopped exploring the dish towel and waxed paper drawers and now focuses solely on the bread and silverware drawers. I'd just appreciate it if he found another movie set to explore.

Otherwise, I might have to channel Drew Barrymore in "Firestarter."

3 comments:

Dorrie said...

Maybe he is telling you it is time to move your silverware to another drawer so he can move in.

Patti said...

Cat. You need a cat. My house has leaking ceilings, holes big enough for a raccoon to get into the basement. I am a leopard print robe and a tiara away from Grey Gardens but I don't have mice because of my cats. Of course there is the shit ton of cat hair, but no mice. It's always a trade off, isn't it? (and cats
won't poop in your silverware drawer. They will throw up on every rug you own, but no poop in the drawer)

Anonymous said...

a. Hans Gruber is no doubt the best evil villain and if you are him, well, then you are awesome. (And Barney Stinson agrees)
b. Mice don't pay rent or provide any useful service, nor were they invited, so it's within your rights to give them the boot. Or trap. Or poison. Whatever.
c. Get a cat. Or borrow one for a week.
d. You are so funny.