"Something happened the other day, and I didn't want to tell you until I saw you in person," Corey told me this morning. I hadn't seen him awake since late Wednesday and only saw him this morning because I couldn't sleep when he woke up at 6am.
"A little mouse got in the house," he continued.
"A little mouse????"
"Just a cute little field mouse, that's all. I heard it making some sounds over in the recycling area."
I tried to remain calm. I immediately felt certain it had made a family in our walls. Corey told me, "I went on a mission to capture it. I chased it over to a teeny hole over there, by the door, and I was sure it got out. So I plugged the hole with [that expandable foam stuff he's been using to seal the windows]."
"We have to disinfect the house," I said, nodding. I'm certain there is typhus in here now.
"Well it hadn't left through the hole after all. So I chased it around and dropped the trashcan upside down over it. Then I slid some cardboard under the can to make a seal and I released it into the woods."
I became immediately terrified that my husband was now emulating my sick father's rodent capture techniques. After my dad had some sort of mid-life crisis, he began capturing squirrels in Have A Heart traps, spray painting them orange, and driving them to the park to set them free. The orange paint was a marker, so he could gage whether he had repeat customers. I can just see Corey going on secret missions into the basement to save little mouse families, finally finding use for the pumpkin paint for the guest room, while I kneel in prayer that my family won't die of the plague.
After years of nomadic temporary employment, advanced degrees, and chocolate ice cream, a rugger with a love of knitting and a cyclist with no domestic skills signed a Ketubah and bought a house in Pittsburgh.
4 comments:
This is too hilarious for words. You and Dee need to have a talk about mice, and I will have a talk with Corey.
I LOVE the part about the orange spray paint.
Mice are kind of hard to get rid of, as I learned this month. It took 3 weeks, but we killed 4 over 2 days, and there haven't been any more!
My grandfather laid chickenwire down in his bird feeder and ran a wire into the house, hooking up a light switch to 120v house current. This was to selectively drive off squirrels from the feeder.
He found this quite amusing and, in a slap-stick sort of way, I imagine the rapid retreat of the squirrels was probably an amusing sight.
One time a cat got in there and he juiced it. Unfortunately, the shock caused it's claws to become ensnared in the wire and it was electrocuted.
When the neighbor kids came around asking if anyone had seen the cat, he said he hadn't seen it.
uh oh, i read these comments to dad and he's really liking der geis' electric story. i'm very afraid!! he has a new idol.
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