Well, after a several-month hiatus ... guess who's back!
 |
| Oh, look. It's a mouse on vacation in my kitchen. How adorable. And tropical. |
I didn't actually see the mouse this time. But I saw his handiwork. And by "handiwork," I mean "copious amounts of poo." Because so help me Oprah, that rodent from hell pooped all in my silverware drawer, my towel drawer, all amongst my aluminum foils and Ziplocs, in my bread drawer, and, of course, on both levels of my lazy susan.
Maybe he was experiencing some sort of gastrointestinal distress. Or maybe he was just a jerk.
Guess who spent an entire morning cleaning and Clorox-wiping the bejesus out of her kitchen?
I tried to be zen about it. I mean, I will never be one of those ladies with muck in the bottom of their drawers because the mouse never stays away long enough for any muck to accumulate. And isn't it kind of exercise to remove all the drawers from the cabinets and wipe down every surface within 50 feet?
Well, I was zen, and I was malicious. Because I fished out the mouse traps my dad gave me and set them up immediately. You know, just in case the mouse was brazen enough to come back while I was cleaning.
So, I wiped down every canned good and our store of extra condiments. I went through a good number of Clorox wipes. And then I realized that there was red stuff on the wipe in my hand. I must have gotten ketchup on myself somehow. I wiped stuff down some more.
And then, I realized it wasn't ketchup. It was blood. At some point, I had sliced open my fingertip, probably on the broken countertop that we've been meaning to replace for five years. The bleach probably numbed the pain, because upon further inspection, more than a few of the used wipes had blood on them. I had literally wiped blood all over my kitchen, its cabinets and drawers.
My eyes rolled into the back of my head as I considered doing another round of Clorox wiping to get rid of the blood.
And then? Then, I decided to let it be. Let the blood be a warning to any rodent vagrants wandering 'round these parts. We here do not take kindly to mice, and we are ready to spill blood - BLOOD! - to combat you. And rest assured, the blood will eventually be yours.
I also channeled kind of a Tommy Lee Jones / Sam Elliott / Josh Brolin hybrid badass cowboy while working this out in my mind. It just felt right.
So, I refrained from deblooding the kitchen. So far, the mouse hasn't come back. Coincidence? I'll let you decide.
Posts
7 comments:
It sounds like you have a family of mice. Someone gave me a tip for mouse traps once. Put it in a paper bag. It's easy to remove the mouse by just picking up the bag and tossing. You don't have to see it. Unless, of course, you want to. And you could get a cat. They are very helpful when it comes to mice.
Mice are assholes. If the traps and dousing your kitchen in blood don't work I suggest burning your house to the ground. Just kidding. Sorta.
I'll graciously offer the use of any or all of my 8 cats. They are exceptional mousers, as evidenced by their mole-patrolling abilities they exhibit outdoors. They may take a shit on your floor, or pee RIGHT ON YOU, as they are wont do to, but your mice problem? Will be history.
Let your blood be a warning to all mice to STAY AWAY FOREVER.
The fact you didn't run away to a hotel makes you my hero.
I'm with BentNotBroken. If the blood doesn't do it, burn it down.
If I put on my rubber kitchen gloves, I am able to deal with mousetraps. If I don't have those, I'm useless. Also, there are some pretty sweet traps these days, much easier to release the little suckers than those old tricky wire and wood things. But I love the paper bag idea from Dorrie. Pretty genius.
I was almost expecting to read, "I heard a 'thwap' of the trap within minutes of setting the traps!" That's happened to me. It's like the mouse was just waiting to die. A suicidal mouse.
Good luck!
That bag tip is clever--never heard of it before.
Can you believe you cleaned AND bled everywhere? That had to make you hate the damn critter even more.
Hope you are shed of it for good.
Post a Comment