A Mouse in the House

Last night I walked through the dining area and saw Tigger, one of our cats, holding a mouse in her mouth. Tigger is a hunter, often leaving "dinner" on our doorstep, so I assumed she had made her way into the house with this mouse. Maybe since I always turned down her offerings, she had decided to bring the mouse straight to the stove- she did make it into the house with a bird once.

I called Jamie to come in and deal with the cat, and then realized this mouse was NOT dead, and had NOT been brought in from the outside--Tigger had just caught it in the kitchen. And then it got loose. I think mice are cute, when outside far from my home, or when I am watching them sing in Cinderella. In my house however, they are a dirty menace to my food and I do not appreciate hearing them in the attic or finding their teeth marks on food packages occasionally.

Now I yelled to Jamie what was going on, and he came out quickly, along with Zach and Xander. The cat was chasing the mouse, and the mouse ran under the hutch. So I'm kneeling on the edge of the rug watching while Jamie and the boys are using a broom and hockey stick to flush Mouse out towards Tigger. Instead, Mouse decided to come out and run towards me. Naturally, I shrieked. After much back and forth, Mouse ran into the living room. Dante watched him run across the floor, and I am surprised my running narrative on Mouse's location did not wake up Micah and Amelia. At one point I told Jamie if I'm going to shriek I might as well stand on a chair, but that was just for fun. (Snakes make me stand on things, mice in my house just make me shriek.)

Eventually Mouse was cornered, and dispatched. Nikita did not fully appreciate the need to end its life and let Dad know her feelings. Really though, I think blunt force trauma to the head was much better than being thrown outside to freeze, or letting Tigger have at him again would really have been merciless of us.

And as I type, Jamie is at the store buying some mouse traps...