Monday, November 15, 2010

The Midnight Hunt: A Tale of Horror

We have something of a mouse problem this year. Not of the cute Mickey or Tom and Jerry variety...we have the beady-eyed, twitchy-tailed, squeaky, disease-carrying, run of the mill vermin infestation.

We discovered the problem when our 7-month-old cat caught 3 mice in 3 days and graciously left them for us on the floor of our office. There has been some speculation that this is not a new problem, but perhaps our old cat did not have the hunting prowess to make us aware there was a problem. If that is the case, then all I can say is, "ignorance is bliss." Fortunately Oreo doesn't seem interested in eating the mice, so save for their little demon souls, they were left intact. I don't know if my heart could handle the discovery of little mouse pieces first thing in the morning.

I of course immediately determined the only sensible course of action.

We have to move.

Cory disagreed, but then he's not the one spending his days in a house crawling with disgusting rodents so can I really put any weight in his argument? I am SO not irrational.

I was left to dispose of mouse #1. I picked it up in a dustpan and carried it outside to our garbage can...screaming the entire way. I wish I wasn't serious. After that initial trauma, I decided I was no longer assuming the responsibility of the family mouse undertaker and would leave that particular chore in the hands of Mr. Rational.

Mouse #2 showed up early on a morning I was heading out for my run. As I came downstairs, I saw Oreo's hind legs sticking out from under a cabinet and heard the squeaking of her disgruntled prey. I woke Cory and told him to prepare for an early morning funeral, because there was no way that mouse was going to greet me when I got back.

He went back to sleep.

Five miles later, I came through the front door, glanced into the office on my right and screamed. This time Cory woke up.

Mouse #3 was discovered while Cory was as work. I closed off the room, rolled out some crime tape and left all forensic evidence in place until he could get home and evaluate the mouse-i-cide.

Then I called our Pest Control.

They sent someone out pretty quickly and I explained the situation. As I discussed our cat's role in the gruesome discoveries, Oreo suddenly appeared in front of us, swished her tail, and I swear began to gloat. They set up a few traps, patted Oreo on the head and left.

The weeks went by and every time we thought we had licked our mouse problem, one would turn up in a trap or Oreo's claws. Until everything came to a horrifying climax early last Monday morning.

It was a dark and stormy night. No, I'm serious, it actually was. It had been a busy weekend as usual, and I had gone to bed early in an attempt to play catch up on all my missing hours of sleep. But alas, it was not to be. Around 12:45, I was awakened to the sounds of scampering and crashing. Disoriented, I sat up in bed and tried to get my bearings just in time to see a black shadow crash into a bookshelf. Somewhere my subconcious clicked into alertness, and without even realizing what I was saying, I shook Cory next to me and said, "Oreo brought a mouse to our room!" He sat up with an incoherent glaze in his eyes, watched the shadow disappear under the bed, and then pointed to a tennis ball that had just rolled out the other side. "Yep, there it is!"

For the next 10 horrified minutes, we watched the cat and mouse in a deadly "cat and mouse" struggle. And then Oreo lost sight of her quarry as it scampered behind my bedside table. We turned the light on, moved the table out and tried to redirect her, but she was convinced the mouse was still behind a bookshelf. Finally we poked back under the table and sent the mouse scurrying out again so that Oreo could pick up the scent. That is a scene I will relive in my mind every night before I go to sleep for the rest of my life. We watched the chase cross the room to the dresser, and Oreo somehow dived underneath the 2 inch gap in pursuit. A minute later we watched in surreal stupor as the mouse darted out the edge only to be nabbed by the lightning quick movement of a black and white paw. Oreo came out from under the furniture with the mouse in her MOUTH! I thought the horror was about to finally end, but instead, she walked to the middle of the room, set down her "toy," batted at it, and started the chase anew!

At this point, I decided enough was enough. I raced across the floor, downstairs and on top of the highest piece of furniture I could reach and yelled to Cory, "Tell me when it's over!"

Another 10 minutes of scampering and crashing carried on above me, when Cory suddenly called out, "Open the back door!" He had apparently tired of the catch and release method of pest removal and decided to take matters into his own hands.

I clumsily unlocked and opened the door just as Cory ran up carrying my bathrobe. He parachuted the projectile mouse out onto the back porch. I grabbed Oreo, just as she tried to follow, but I couldn't stop the dog from darting into the gaping mouth of commotion. He walked over to the stunned and likely dizzy mouse, picked it up in his mouth and crunched hard. If I go deaf tomorrow, I will remember the sound of that crunch. Then he dropped the mangled body, sniffed it, and trotted back inside. Cory decided to wait until light of day to dispose of the remains. He then handed me my robe and asked, "Hey, are you cold?"

It was just about the time that my alarm went off 4 hours later that I finally started to drift off to sleep.

That's it, we're just going to have to move.

As for the official record...Oreo:5, Snap Traps:2, Grendel:1, Humanity:0