Diary of a mad housewife....

Dear diary,

We have another mouse in our house.

Another mouse in our house.

(Dear Googie....if you are reading this and I have not yet spoken to you about this intruder...forgive me, it was too early to wake you up and scare you...hope you will forgive me. Walk hard and carry a big stick.... Love, Mom)

Have I told you lately how much I hate small things that sneak about my house (uninvited) and threaten to jump and run and scare the bejesus outta me?

I'm sure by now you know that I'm so jumpy I have to leave the room when the loveables are making anything using those damned canned biscuits that POP when you least expect it.

And my heart stops when a Jack in the Box blows...

It sucks being this jumpy..."a hen on a hot griddle" (my stepmom's description).

So from now on, until this creature is found I have to stomp (to make lots of noise) around my house wearing Daddio's old Doc Martin boots.

I'll be cringing before I sit down on the pot in the middle of the night....

I have no doubt, (none whatsoever) that Mighty Mouse/Rat can swim...or maybe float on some toilet paper left unflushed....

waiting to strike, to take a nibble.

We learned of this particular mouse when Bear and his girlfriend came up from the cave to report that they'd seen a creature running above their heads across the large square fluorescent light fixture....

"It had a huge, long tail" said the Devine Miss M,

"It might have been a rat"...

"Mouse? Rat? What the hell is the difference?

(Please..don't anyone write to tell me, thank you)

Daddio got out of bed and went to the area of the sighting, mouse trap in hand.

"THAT" he said pointing to a (very) small pile of white clothes laundry sitting on the basement floor next to the washing machine..."that right there is WHY we have a MOUSE in this HOUSE"

"Huh?" said I.

"They like dirty laundry?"

"They like moisture" he snapped.

"And that is why they are down here, because we  (that means me) have laundry laying all over the place"....

(Ohhhh freakin brother....)

After he set the trap he came upstairs and began cleaning the two or three small dessert plates left in the sink by the kids.

He cleaned every crumb from the counters.

I waited to see if he was going to sweep the floor too...(he didn't).

Later, back in bed, he told me that part of the problem is that we leave the dog food out.

"We used to pick it up off the floor at night" he reminded me.

(Previous uninvited mouse folk have eaten a chunk out of an ugly ugly green sweater that I left laying in the basement on a pile of other crap I didn't want, the beard of a really cool Santa that I got for 50% off at Michaels at an after Christmas sale, they also ate part of a foreign dollar bill that I'd been saving for years, and they even chewed up a hunk of pink fiberglass insulation...)

"I really don't think they are all that picky" I said to Daddio (remember??? you just told me that they eat dirty white towels and underwear off the basement floor??)

I tried to mentally add the cost of purchasing enough plastic storage bins to box up all our crap...

(We'd need to win the lottery.)

"They are after your pantry" Daddio said quietly before he went to sleep,

and just as he was about to drift off....

"they can smell all those things you have in there...those spices".

In my head I sing my sweet Knight in Shining Armor, the Mighty Mouse Hunter a good night lullaby...

"Have I told you lately that I love yooooo, have I told yoooooou there's no one else above yoooooou, fill my heart with laughter (FREAKIN,hysterical laughter.....)...shooooobeeeedobeedooobeeedoooobeeedo"

"Why are you shakin the bed???"