It was a mouse...

Yesterday I was reading Veronica's post about not the spider that was in her cleavage ...

Apparently earlier there was a spider in her cleavage at some point. She lives in Tasmania. I guess things like that happen there.

So I was writing a comment about how I saw a fox run across the street, and how I would rather have a fox outside than a spider the size of my hand in my bedroom. (Tasmania has big ass spiders.)

Tess started yelling for me, because she saw something run across her room and into her closet. I went up there and poked around a little, but not too much, because I really didn't want to find anything. Finding a mouse is for when Mark is there to deal with it.

I went back downstairs, and a couple minutes later Tess yelled again. She again saw something black run across the room and behind the door. I didn't see anything then. Tess by this point is sitting on her bed with her feet up because there is something on the floor.

Later, I was going out to the garage, and I saw a mouse -- well, a black blur -- shoot away from the door to the mud room and under Mark's tool chest.

(Our garage has room for both vehicles -- I know anyone who saw my garage in Tucson is stunned -- but there is stuff in boxes all the way around. That mouse could disappear forever as long as he stuck to the walls.)

Damn it. We had mice in The Netherlands, and it was an enormous pain trying to get rid of them. So I was thinking I would have to go get traps and set them out and then deal with the traps and sigh. I hate mice.

Later, after supper, Tess saw the mouse again, downstairs in the kitchen. We have a sideboard with the coffee pot and the espresso machine and all the mugs and cups in the kitchen, and two fruit boxes from Costco, for the recycling. The bottom one is full of glass and cans, the top one has paper and cardboard. The mouse was under the sideboard and then disappeared into the recycling box.

Thor at this point was squatting down a couple feet from the sideboard. Unfortunately the mouse didn't break his way, because he would have jumped a mile, I bet.

Eventually the kids got bored, since the mouse was in hiding.

A couple minutes later I heard this enormous noise of rattling glass and metal, and heard a couple tea bottles hit the floor. The noise repeated...

It was Mark, kicking the bottom recycling box into the wall. Twice. Because the mouse was behind the box. Then he -- and boy did this gross Tess out -- reached down AND PICKED THE MOUSE UP BY THE TAIL.

He thought it was dead, but the little feet were moving rather feebly. I dove for the back door and Mark swung and let the mouse fly over the back fence.

He felt kinda bad about that, knocking the mouse senseless and then tossing it into the cold. I, on the other hand, treated him as a hero.

Okay, well, I said "My hero." I didn't bake him a cake or sleep with him or anything. I didn't buy him a card.

He went to bed a couple minutes before me. When I climbed in next to him, he said "I slayed a mouse."

I laughed and reminded him that mice are nasty vermin. And that he is my hero.