Mouse Party at the Ryan House

    "I don't like that mouse," says Emma, every time she spies the trap, meaning, she doesn't like the snap as it goes off when Daddy's up for giving her a good old-fashioned scare.  Me, I don't like the mouse that's supposed to get trapped in them.
    We've lived in this house for six and a half years now and never had mice, but this year we (and everybody else I talk to) has mice GALORE.  I despise the things.  In fact, I get that little girl screech and jump up onto whatever is the closest to me.  Last month it was from the floor to the bathroom vanity in, oh only about, .2 seconds from when I saw the thing run across the hallway.  That one, my prince-charming-mouse-catcher-husband, actually managed to catch with his bare hands....I won't tell you how he got rid of it.  It was a little dozy, but really really disgusting, as I found that it was making a stockpile in the drawer beneath our bed.  Yes right beneath where I LAY MY HEAD!
    Now, a month later there seems to be more of them, and they have moved to the wall in our bedroom.  Partying it up in there every night too.  They scritch and scratch from the doorway wall to the closet (by which point I'm staring intensely at our clothes to see if I did really just see that scarf move or if my night eyes are just playing tricks on me) to the wall at the head of the bed.  By that point one of us is banging on the wall (usually Brad, because, let's face it, I'm pretty much petrified) or throwing pillows or just generally describing how we are going to get a shotgun and start blasting the wall apart.  Hmmm...might be a way to get rid of the old panelling and do some drywall.  Then again, thinking about how the kitchen redo was started 2 years ago and I have yet to have one measly 4X8 sheet put up behind the stove to finish the project, I think I better just do a little more bugging for that poison to get put in the attic tomorrow night.
   On the bright side, mice are not nearly as noisy as the flying squirrels my parents have attracted to their walls.  And today, I'm really into counting my blessings!