I'm a bad housekeeper and a bad mousekeeper

Just wanted to mention that I hit my other elbow on the corner of a cabinet today. So I have decided that I have some type of magnet in both elbows that attract the corners of objects. I’m glad that that mystery is solved.

Anyway, just a little info on the Deer mouse situation I described many bogs ago. After finding the chocolate coin foils in the basement suitcases, (refer to "micecapades) but not actually seeing any perpetrators, I started to suspect that the whole thing might be the work of the small people who live in my house and tend to do despicable things and then pretend that they didn’t.

So, I sort of forgot about the whole thing. Then, one day, many weeks later, my younger son claimed he had actually seen a little mouse run across the den floor. There were two other people there at the time (a larger son and even larger husband) who did not see the intruder. Was my son trying to throw me off his scent? Who knew?

A week later, the same kid yells that he has just seen the mouse again, and he ran under the refrigerator. (the mouse-not the kid) Well, I don’t want to bore you with the many unsubstantiated sightings, but they tended to be very similar. They took place in the kitchen/den, and the same imaginative boy was the only witness. I was skeptical. It had been over a year since the coin incident. Why would these little guys be upstairs all of a sudden? Why indeed.

Then, one evening, as I was alone, watching T.V. I heard a distinct munching sound from the kitchen, several feet behind me. There in the dim kitchen near the cabinet , (on the floor, of course) was a tiny black/grey mouse, going to town on a cheerio or something he found on the floor. (When I say you can eat off of my floors--I am not kidding.) With my recent shoulder injury, a mouse could probably find the all-you-can-eat buffet there. Needless to say my broom and I had not spent much time together over the previous months.

Oddly, I was not startled at all. I guess all of the previous inklings of the little guys presence prepared me for such a meeting. I thought him a little brazen though. I mean, to sit right there, in the open, and chow down in front of the house owner, is probably not in the “How to be a smart mouse” book of rules. When I got up, he had the presence of mind to scurry away. Not that I was going to hurt him--I just wanted to get a good look at the chocolate coin bandit. I tried to ferret him out, but he went behind the oven. A while latter, I could here him rattling around in the oven drawer, He or she, was a gutsy mouse. I knew no matter how cute it was, where there was one mouse there was more somewhere else.

Later, I'll tell you more about how and why they finally came upstairs after staying out of site, in the basement for so long . I found the whole experience very interesting and entertaining. Yet, sad and anxiety filled. If you love animals as much as I do--you are pretty much screwed in that situation.