A hostage situation

A mouse is holding my mixer hostage. It’s an issue.

First, let me tell you that I hate being a squishy female when it comes to mice. I don’t mind spiders and critters and creatures that crawl, but mice give me the heebie-jeebies. I think it’s probably because they look furtive.

Think about it. A mouse doesn’t walk into a room and announce his presence with authority. He sneaks around, wiggling in and out of tiny holes, stopping every now and then to rub his little front paws together while plotting things. Well, maybe it’s really stopping to nibble on something, but it looks like the little guy is planning violence or contemplating evil.

So, there’s a mouse in my house, and it nibbles and makes noise in the cupboard under my sink, which is where I keep my stand mixer. I didn’t think there was anything under there that would interest a mouse – after all, the cupboard is full of mismatched vases, bottles of dish soap, the brush I optimistically hoped I would use to scrape excess hair off my dog – nothing a mouse would really appreciate. After a bit of investigation, which was rather brave on my part, I discovered a half empty bag of old dog biscuits that my picky mutt Jeffrey apparently disapproved of. The dog will chew on old deer legs and various dead things, but didn’t like the biscuits.

The mouse, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to mind them at all.

The logical thing to do is put a trap in there, but the only thing worse than little furtive mice is little squished mice with broken spines and crushed skulls. I’m a first responder and have scraped people out of car crashes without a qualm, but little squished mice make my shudder.

So I went with a back-up plan. I made Eric do it.

I bought a couple of traps, and he set them in my cupboard. My husband has promised – not without some eye rolling and impatient sighs – to empty any little corpses the traps catch.

But until then, my mixer is still under there. And I just know some furtive little mouse with big, hairy teeth is waiting for me to reach in for the appliance, just so he can jump out at me. Like I said, it’s an issue.