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July 27, 2005

Awwwwwww

First, I found what I thought looked like mouse droppings in one of our moving boxes. Derek convinced me they were black sesame seeds (I'm gullible; he's optimistic to a fault). Then, when I was getting a glass of water late one night, I caught a very cute, very small little mouse scurrying behind the sink and down one of the burner holes in the stove. My first thought was, "Awwww!" My second thought was, "damn, I need to clean those crumbs up from under the toaster," which I did. Since we have a whole colony of mice living in our house upstate, I wasn't fazed by one single mouse, although I should known better (where there's one, there are many, D reminded me).

We vowed to be better about cleaning things up, but we're lazy about dishes -- at least I am. Apparently the mouse is familiar with this tendency because he's been getting a bit more bold. I was on the phone last night in the kitchen when I caught him running from behind the microwave to the stove at a somewhat less-than-scared pace. It was more of an okay-I'm-done-now pace, actually. I wished for a minute that he'd stick around so I could get a picture, but then reminded myself that a rodent infestation, on top of the ant infestation we already have, is NOT a good thing, for many, many reasons.

Tonight, both Derek and I were in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner when Mr. Mouse (could be a she, but I'm not going through the whole "he or she" routine in this text) poked his head out from under a dishtowel and then disappeared again. We both stopped what we were doing and tried to figure out exactly where the little bastard was. I slowly picked up the dishtowel and shook it. Nothing. We gingerly moved a water bottle. I was convinced he was underneath the toaster. Derek thought he was behind the jar of flour. Slowly and a bit timidly (I'm not exactly sure what we were afraid of, ahem) we moved things around looking for him. No mouse. I was impressed. He's a devious, tricky little animal. Finally, I figured he'd snuck behind the microwave when we weren't looking and I started moving the cookbooks leaning up against it. He shot out from behind it for a second, we both jumped, and then he disappeared again.

I was about to give up and let him hide so we could finish cleaning up. My strategy was something like: "Do the dishes and pretend this never happened and there isn't actually a mouse somewhere on the countertop." Derek wasn't giving up, though -- he started moving each cookbook back and forth and rattling the microwave again. Suddenly, he drew back his hand quickly and said something like "Ah!" I looked where he was looking and screamed. This is what we saw.

I wasn't scared, just sort of freaked out by the mouse making a bold appearance and clearly looking right at us. It was almost as if he got fed up and came out to see what we were up to. He stayed that way long enough for me to run and get my camera and take a picture. Maybe he knows I have a blog. It was a pretty good plan of his, too. We stopped moving stuff around, took a picture, and then went back to cleaning the kitchen when he snuck behind the cookbooks again. He clearly knows how to handle people. I'm thinking of giving him a name and considering him a member of the family. Bartholemew? Grayer? Tiny Tim? I'm open to suggestions.

Posted by csageday at July 27, 2005 11:40 PM

Comments

Posted by: me at July 28, 2005 12:27 PM

Posted by: kaitlyn at July 28, 2005 02:50 PM