Quiet as a Mouse

This morning as I was heading across the upstairs walkway to the kids’ rooms to wake them up, I heard weird rustling noises in the kitchen.

Hmmmm.  Must be a hungry kid who’s up early and eating directly out of the cereal box or something while standing in the pantry.  So I lean over the railing and call, “You’re up early, Sweetie!  I’ll be right down.”

A pause in the rustling ensued.  But no direct acknowledgement from the rustler followed.  Rude.

As I look up from this one-sided exchange, I can see through Sonny’s open door that he’s still in his bed.  That’s puzzling.  I would have voted him Most Likely to Rustle up Some Breakfast Before Everyone Else is Up.  So I guess it must be Sissy down there.  After I wake Sonny up, even though Sissy is apparently up and eating breakfast already, I stop in her room anyway to turn off her fan which she must’ve forgotten to turn off before she left for her early morning grub foray.

And there’s Sissy…still asleep in her bed!

Uhhh.  Wow.  Either a neighbor completely lost their marbles and broke in for a snack, or the escaped juvenile males from last week ARE actually in my house AND they stayed for breakfast.

So I rush back into my bedroom and wake up my boyfriend, hand him a hairbrush I happen to be carrying and tell him there’s a noise downstairs he has to investigate since Hubby’s out of town.

Ha, ha, HA!  That was silly.  And YOU’RE so silly for believing that thing about the boyfriend.  It was totally my husband all along.  You’re naughty for thinking otherwise.

Hubby comes out onto the walkway with me.  By that time Sissy is up too and we’re all gathered there when, rustle rustle RUSTLE!

Hubby turns to me and says, “What WAS that?” 

I DON’T KNOW!  THAT’S WHY I CALLED YOU IN!  YOU’RE THE CAVALRY IN THIS STUPID PLAY!!!!

So Hubby hops on his horse and disappears downstairs.  Then I hear him say, “Oh, Lord, it’s a mouse!!!”

Apparently when he got downstairs, he found a chip bag on the floor of the pantry WITH a mouse rustling around inside.  No wonder why we’ve all been having stomach aches these last few days!  We’ve probably been eating hantavirus with our BBQ ‘tater chips.  Gaaack!  GAAAAAACK!!!!

So Sissy and I, along with the dog – who thinks the whole thing is just a big, impromptu party – rush downstairs.  As I come around the corner, Hubby, who’s standing guard at the pantry door, looks at me and says, “Do we have a…bowl…or something?!?” 

A bowl?  Really??!  This has ‘Three Stooges’ written all over it!  So I say exactly that as I hand him a used yogurt container.

Instead of picking UP the chip bag WITH the mouse still inside of it in order to dump it out the back door, the brilliant “bowl” concept is now in play.  This entails Hubby dumping out the chip bag onto the floor of the pantry and then SLAMMING his tiny “bowl” down on TOP of the chips.  Because the chips are super slow, he wins there.  The mouse, however?  Is really fast and it runs OUT of the pantry while Hubby’s futzing with the chips.  It proceeds around the kitchen island at a high clip and disappears into a lower cupboard.

*^%&$#*%!!  *^%$#%^&*$#!!!!! 

Ya know what’s wacky about all of that?  No matter how far the Right to Vote and Equal Pay for Equal Work has taken us, some women STILL go all olde-tyme when faced with a mouse underfoot.  They scream EEEEEEEEEEK! and jump up on a chair.  There also may have been some swearing.  Like I said: wacky.  And quite frankly, disappointing.

Eventually, Sonny shows up acting suspiciously like the dog – completely oblivious to what’s really going on, but in high spirits nonetheless.  Turns out he thought there was a snow day we were excitedly whispering then shrieking about.  What the WHAT??

Anyway, all’s well that ends well.  No snow day, though.  And the mouse is still somewhere in the house.  But Hubby has set a few “traps” so it’s just a matter of time before we start eating BBQ mouse feces again.

For your viewing pleasure, here are pictures of the “traps.”  One is set up outside the pantry door.  And one is set up outside the cupboard where the mouse disappeared.  These traps are designed and copyrighted by Curly, so please don’t think you can invent them and sell them for a profit.