the color purple

I couldn't help myself.  It was the color purple drawing me like a magnet.  What happened was as inevitable as breathing.

We were having a run on mice.  Or rather, they were having a run on us.  Stevie Wonder told me last night that there was half a hamburger bun missing from a pack.  In his words:

"It looked like a whole damn family of mice was eating here."

I told him I thought I had heard the patter of little feet the night before, but just decided not to investigate.  We discussed it and decided to set two traps.  The first trap snapped while we were all watching TV.  (The National Championship game between Alabama and Notre Dame, in case you haven't heard about it ad nauseum by now.)

Stevie hollered "I heard it!  We got one!"

You'd think he had just bagged an 8 point buck.  (That is deer in redneckese.)

He investigated, got the body, and I did the clean up.  (We have developed our own CSI routine for dealing with DBs - dead bodies.)  We reset the trap (he reset, I provided the cheese.)

Nothing else.  We all knew that mice are not monogamous.  But no more snaps.

Until Steve had just gotten in bed.  I was washing my face in the bathroom and Wretch was in the other end of the house getting ready for bed.  We both heard it snap.  Wretch found the DB.  I hollered at Steve to go get it out of the house.

He said "I am NOT getting out of bed to get rid of a DB!"

I said...

Oh yes you are.  GET YOUR ASS UP NOW!  I do NOT want a DB laying in my kitchen all night long!

He cussed and groaned but got up.  I followed him to the kitchen to make sure he didn't throw it in the garbage.  He went outside, then came back in and we did our recheese and reset routine.  He bent over to put the trap in the floor.  By my pots and pans.  That was when I saw them.

He had on purple drawers.  His butt looked like a grape, and there it was just stuck up in the air....

Then I did it...the unthinkable.

I goosed him.  He screamed and cussed and his head shot up.

Right into my pots and pans.  He cussed me some more as I melted into a puddle laughing.

Wretch said "what's going on".

I said through my laughing "I goosed your dad and he banged into the pots and pans."  Wretch started laughing as loudly as I did.

Steve stomped off to bed.  His last words were:

"That isn't a damn bit funny."

Oh yes it was, Stevie Wonder.  I'm still laughing about it.

...life is good. ~cath
find me @jonesbabie on Twitter

mousecapade

Friday was one of those weird days you hope you don't have to experience again for a long time.  It started out strange and ended on a bizarre note that no one would believe, if I didn't have the evidence.

We'd been out getting Stevie Wonder a high octane checkup, had a nice lunch out and of course, the requisite Starbucks (I can't go to Birmingham without getting a Tazo Chai Latte).

At home that evening, SW went to bed early because the stress test had whipped his butt (it was a Thallium stress test, and let me tell you, walking a treadmill is nothing to getting zapped by medication to stress your heart).  That was when it started.  I saw movement from the corner of my eye, and looked at the floor in front of the TV.

There sat a mouse, looking back at me.

I screamed.  Don't ask me why.  I had a pet rat when I was a kid and I wasn't afraid of a mouse.  I think he just startled me.  I heard Steve roaring "WHAT THE HELL'S THE MATTER?" behind his CPap and I hollered back:

"THERE'S A MOUSE IN HERE!  A BIG ONE!"

I heard him grumbling as he got out of bed.  I won't set traps.  That's his job.  I tell him about the mice, he sets the traps, and disposes of the DBs.  (That is Dead Bodies for those of you who don't watch CSI.)

I had reported the mouse.  There was a trap in the kitchen that had been sprung.  He came in and reset it.  And set two more in different parts of the house.  I was laughing out loud by the time he finished.  What is funny about setting traps?  It isn't the traps.  It's watching a grown man in his underwear try to set the trap, and having it snap on him, and hearing him cuss.  Pretty entertaining stuff from my perch on the couch.

While he was setting them, we watched the mouse run from room to room.  I figured he was hungry and would get trapped pretty dang quick.

Nope.  He ran right by those traps like they weren't even there.  That is when I realized he was different.  Unique.  Weird.  Scary.

I watched him run right out into the living room and look at me.  He just sat there, staring.  I screamed.  Stevie Wonder cussed.  And got up.

I said: "Look, he's sitting right there, and LOOKING AT ME."

Steve said: "Hit him with a damn shoe."

I said: "I have crummy aim.  You do it."

Steve said: "Oh hell, give me a shoe."  (in a disgusted voice)

He grabbed his shoe and I told him to wait, the mouse would come out.  And it did.  Straight out in front of Steve.  He drew back like the best big league pitcher I've ever seen and threw his show at that mouse.  It had to be doing 90 miles an hour when it hit it.

The mouse turned and ran.  Steve looked a few more minutes, chased it out from it's hiding spot in my future laundry room, and got a couple more shots off.  It WAS moving slower though.  And stopping in weird spots, like the middle of the room.  No decent mouse stops in the middle of a room.  It just isn't safe.

Steve finally said he was done, and going back to bed.  The mouse had hidden by that point, and I figured the traps would get him sooner or later.  I was thinking about that other half hamburger from Red Robin I had brought home from lunch, and decided to warm it in the microwave and eat it.

Big mistake.  The lingering aroma of burger not only brought the mouse OUT of hiding, it brought him straight to the couch.  I had my legs wrapped around my head by this point and was hollering at Steve, who refused to get back up at that point.  The mouse stopped at the edge of the couch, and leaned UP on it and looked up at me.  We were both staring at each other bug eyed by then.

I knew I would have to take measures.  SW was useless by this point, and I knew it was up to me.  I braced myself and the race was on.  I chased the mouse from room to room, and got a couple shots at it with SW's tennis shoe (those things weigh about 10 pounds each).  But never could stop it.  At some point in the chase, I decided to get my iPhone and capture the evidence on camera.  This is what I got:

mouse running

mouse still running

mouse running some more

This went on for quite a while.  The reason the photos are blurry is because I was running with him, and kind of jumping up and down at the same time.

I finally cornered lost him, and sat down to catch my breath.  Then I heard a commotion in the kitchen.  And saw the cord swinging that hung down from SW's coffee grinder on the corner cabinet in the kitchen.  I looked around, and spotted him.  He was catching his breath too.

Just in case you doubt me, here's a close up:   

mouse at rest on SW's coffee grinder

I looked at him, he looked at me, and that was when my mother took over in me.  I grabbed a fly flap (you call them fly swatters), and chased him to the edge of the cabinet.  Just as he was about to jump, I finished him off.  Slam dunk.

I think this is the first time a mouse was slain with a fly flap.

Being me, I left the DB for Stevie Wonder.  Who didn't notice it the next morning until I pointed it out.  (Pffttt, some hunter he is...didn't even see what was in front of his nose toes.)

Then I told him it had been all over his coffee grinder.  And turned around and walked off.

I drink tea.

~cath xo
Twitter @jonesbabie