A Mouse in the House

Yesterday was a gorgeous spring day and literally the first day of 2015 that we could leave the house in short-sleeved shirts. Of course we spent most of the day outside, cleaning up all of the sticks that fell through the winter and raking up all of the leaves that had been plastered to the ground beneath all the snow.

One of our spring cleaning projects was to clean up our sunroom (or Florida room, as my Dad calls it). Throughout the winter, this room acts as our catch-all for anything that we don’t have room for in the house. After the long, dark months of winter, it can get pretty scary out there.

So yesterday, Dave spent several hours cleaning the room and getting it ready for warm weather. His ultimate goal is not that he and I should have a nice place to relax and put our feet up, but that the cats will have somewhere new to sun themselves.

In the late afternoon, after we had completed our yard work and various projects, I went into the kitchen to begin making dinner. Dave left the sunroom door open so the cats could explore this room that they hadn’t seen since last fall.

As I laid the cutting board on the counter and prepared to cut vegetables, I saw Sophie (the black cat) walk into the kitchen in my peripheral vision. Absentmindedly, I greeted her. I turned to look at her and saw that she was holding something in her mouth. Something brown and plump, with shining, beady black eyes. My first thought was “Wow, that’s a realistic looking mouse toy! I wonder where she found that?”

Then, unconsciously, I began to scream. The screams rose up out of my chest like they had a life of their own. I couldn’t stop myself. Sophie dropped the mouse on the floor and began batting it around like a toy. I screamed louder and pranced around like I was barefoot on hot coals.

Dave, meanwhile, was in the shower and could only hear a hint of my screaming. I imagined that he would come running out in a towel, dripping wet, to rescue me, but he did not. (Good thing I wasn’t actually being attacked!)

Finally, I came to my senses and grabbed Sophie from behind. She struggled and fought, but I was able to get her away from the mouse. I threw her into the living room and returned to see the mouse escaping beneath a cabinet.

I have always thought (quite proudly) that I was not one of those women who would scream and make an exaggerated fuss when exposed to a flying insect or spider. I’ve taken entomology classes. I know insects can be beneficial and harmless. In fact, we have a spider that lives in our bathroom, and I let her reside there because I’m cool like that.

But somehow, a cute little mouse in my house will cause me to lose my mind.