Mouse Guest (part 1)

The girls went to bed early.

10-ish.

So, I was alone in front of the cable with my trusty mutt curled up under the crook of my ass and back-knee. Both us sitting on the couch, pals, enjoying some “man’s bestest” time.

Then, through a hazed glaze of 2 Rolling Rocks and six laps around the cable box, a scurry. A full-on scurry. Behind the Payless shoe box next to the front door.

“Cee,” I nudged the pooch, “Did you just see something over there?”

He just let out a sleepy woof and nuzzled back into my left ass cheek.

Hmm. I think that was a little mouse.

Shit!

Now, I don’t fancy myself much of a siss, but I was certainly uneasy with the whole concept that an outdoor creature was now indoors… in my doors and pooping little mouse craps on my rug. So, I waited, glue-eyed, to the Payless shoe box sitting by the front door.

His little grey head peeked out from the side of the box and gave out a few sniffs. Then a body squash and second scurry under the TV stand.

No questions this time: That was a mouse. Definitely, a little-goddamn-mouse!!

Dammit, we got rodents. Now the house is all inner city. What’s next a gang shoot-out and bus routes through the computer room?

I’ll admit it. When I saw the scurry, I went a little “eek”… wanting to look all like the maid from the Tom and Jerry cartoons, ready to hightail it to a chair holding a broom, wearing a house apron, screaming for “Thomas!”

I peered over to my trusty guard dog who was comfortably resting his drooling chin on the hypo-allergenic pillow I slapped down on the couch for myself.

“Well…?”

He de-lidded one eye.

“It’s your house, too…”

He drew his tongue up over his nose and licked both eyes. It's pretty outstanding that he can clean his peepers like that. But, still, as cool as that talent is for him... it wasn’t helping me.

“Get the mouse?”

Nah. Not him. Protection. It ain’t his bag, man.

The mouse must have whiskered the dog’s fear and braved out from under the TV stand. He stood hind-up in the middle of the living room rug. Just looking at us. His nose in a constant sniff. His little microscopic pink mini-man fingers rolling around each other like a board room movie villain.

I leaned into the dog’s ear and whispered, “Duuuude...”

Both eyes opened in the direction of this rodent dropping pencil-tip #2s on my rug. Then he eyeballed up to me… and… cried.

“You’re crying?!?”

The mouse scampered into the computer room.

Probably going to catch the next bus.

“Come on, man. Get him..."

The poor dog tensed and sandbagged himself to the couch as I tried to shove his ham from the leather cushions. His padded dog meat only bunched and gloved at my knuckles as I buried him further into the Mexican wool blanket that he had himself already wrapped in.

Pussy.

I mean, let me be real here. The dog cries if his bed smells dirty.

He won’t eat if his water dish and his food dish are juxtaposed on his dining mat… and touching.

So, yes, he’s pampered. Soft. Never to keep a protective pack-eye on our homestead. And, frankly, maybe it’s his canid way of scolding us after the Neutering of ‘99: “If you ain’t gonna let me have balls, you ain’t getting balls… you get the mouse, motherfucker.”

Yeah. Me get the mouse.

Ewww!

I had to own up to it, I was on a pansy par with my pooch. But one of us had to dispose of this rat and it clearly wasn’t going to be him.

Since this was my first live rodent (I’ve rubber-gloved plenty of stiffs from the basement), the question was: What to do? I don’t know how to rid a house of mouse.

I didn’t want to poison the thing. That would just leave it dead and stenching in the unknown.

I didn’t have any traps around. And even if I did, using a classic pull-back-and-snap trap couldn’t be an option. Hearing that poor little skintail shrieking squeals of impending mouse death in the middle of the night -

My girls wouldn't dig that.

And what was worse, I'm not a pipe player. Or pipe pyer. I've never pied a pipe. Or whatever-the-Hell-ever.

No, I had to do my next best up from the Hamelinian mindset and catch this little grey wheel-runner with tools. So I grabbed the best that I had: A Swifter Wet-Jet and a dirty bath towel out of the hamper.

Now, armed, I heroed my way, in almost non-motion, towards the computer room.

I turned to my canine crybaby one last time, “You coming?”

He just snored into the hypo-allergenic pillow.

Truly, the dickhead has to know that this is more pathetic than his most pathetic moment to date. 6 years ago, while asleep in a curled-up ball on the big couch, he farted in his own face… barked at his asshole… then moved to the loveseat. Afraid of a thumb-sized rodent was rising quickly above that moment as just plain sad.

I made my way into the computer room – AND THERE HE WAS!!! The mouse. All snug against the baseboard, eating a chocolate jimmie that was floored from a bowl of vanilla Tiny got into trouble for eating on top of the computer - 3 months ago.

Aw, mouse, have you no culinary shame?

So, while he shamelessly dined, I tried to stun him with the flat end of the Swifter Wet-Jet, but a piece of lint dropped from the Wet-Jet and scared him right across the hall into the bathroom.

“Rick?”

Shit! I woke Wifey!

“’sup, babe?”

“What are you doing?”

My answer had to be crafted. Careful. There was no way that she was going to be cool with a mouse running around her home, so, I softly and very cautiously... gingerly said, “…. mouse…”

“WHAT?!? THERE’S A MOUSE RUNNING IN THE HOUSE? FROM WHERE?!? DID YOU LET IT IN?!?”

Dammit. Now I HAVE TO catch him...

... to be continued….