Remember the Great Rodent Shakedown of 'o8? When I was raining down terror on all things small, grey and beady-eyed?Ugh.
Well, last weekend came the first actual rain in like seven months. And then in came all those disgusting little rodents.
Here at the Cortes household, the score is this:
Rodents: 0 (for now)
Rodent haters: 8 (could be more but I lost count)
Yep, in the span of a week, we have managed to catch eight mice. Count 'em . Eight. And there is still one scurrying in the garage, we just haven't caught it yet. Oh, but your time is coming soon, you filthy little rat bastard.
See? These freakin' mice got me all foul-mouthed and stuff.
It all started on Halloween night. Everyone was finally asleep and the house was quiet. I was sitting at the kitchen table, on my laptop. All of a sudden, I heard this persistent munching sound and it was driving me nuts. Mice. Then I started to hear this chirping sound. For a second I thought it could be some birds in a nest.
But oh no.
They were not birds. It was mice. Chattering away like Gus and his homies in Cinderella.
I was waiting for them to make me a dress and sew the pearls on it but they were too busy munching on all the leftover crumbs that manage to hide under my stove.
I got up quietly to observe. What I saw horrified me (how's that for a Halloween scare?). About three to four baby mice popping in and out of the bottom of my stove, all chirping away.
It was soooo disgusting.
That was when I realized that those sticky "humane" traps we put out worked about as well as me catching them with my hands. They would simply take the peanut butter blob off of it, get a portion of their tail caught on the corner and then they'd break free and scurry off. Ugh. When the traps would be moved in places we didn't originally place them, I knew those crafty little suckers were breaking free.
I knew we would have to bring out the big guns. Literally. One night I found Michael in the dark, perched on his stomach in the middle of the kitchen floor, pellet gun poised on a pillow...with a flashlight pointed into the pantry. Have you ever seen Ratatouille? When that little old lady catches Remi watching the cooking show when she is asleep? And she just about shoots her own house apart trying to get at those mice? Ahem. Uh, yeh. That's what it was like.
So after trying in vain to hunt the mice with the pellet gun....PING! PING!! PING!!....we decided to put out the neck-breaking traps. Yes. We waited until the chil'rens were asleep so we could put the traps out in the middle of the kitchen floor. In less than an hour we had caught four. Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Music to my ears.
The next morning there was a big commotion before breakfast because the chil'rens saw a mouse on the loose in the pantry. So we knew we didn't catch them all. Michael managed to find the hole where they were traveling in from the garage and then he sprayed it with glue adhesive. Then the mice were getting stuck in the hole.
Muahahahahaaaaaaa.
The day after that I was once again on the laptop at the kitchen table. In the middle of the day. I kept hearing this paper rustling. I looked up to see a mouse on my kitchen counter, shaking down a napkin for it's crumbs. The balls on that mouse. I imagined there might be a countless number in the walls, since this one was brave enough to venture out during the day, onto my kitchen counter no less. Everytime he heard a noise, he would climb into my stove burners.
Seriously.
I was revolted and pissed and shocked all at the same time. So we put out a trap and caught that sucker. Whew. Michael was talking about how he might have been premature in his mouse-trapping triumphs because as he walked into the pantry, a mouse scurried over his bare foot. Then as he is telling me this and walking into our bathroom--I am so not kidding--he sees a mouse running for my "bathroom reading". He smashed the crap out of it with a shoe.
Holey smokes.
You can't be serious! Is this some sort of infestation???? When will this killing field end??? Is this Mouse Armageddon??? I can't take this anymore!!!!!!
Get ahold of yourself, Pearmama.
It's been three days. We haven't had anymore mice caught in the traps we've laid around the house. I think we just might survive this scourge. I'll keep you posted.
