Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Of Mice and Me

We have mice again. I hate mice. I think about them before I go to sleep - in my kitchen, on my counter tops. In the morning I find their poo behind the microwave - oh they love it behind the microwave. They love it over by my brand new wedding present glory that is the Artisan Stand Mixer. They love the corner behind the sink - they love my kitchen.

You must understand that I have done my best to make our kitchen totally unappealing to mice. No food, no crumbs, no water. So tell me, if there is no food, no water, no stuff to build a nest with - what are you doing in my kitchen? It's a barren place - it is a desert to a mouse. So what gives? Why come back? I'm finding no other evidence of mice in the rest of the house.

I hate the city! I've lived in the suburbs for most of my life with nary a mouse encounter save for the back yard. Here in the city, on the third floor of an apartment building, I'm lousy with them. I need a cat! If only C. would let me get a cat!

If these mice start messing with my yarn, we're moving faster than C. thinks!

Till tomorrow, it's all the news that's fit to knit.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

It really depends on the cat. True story:

I had mice in my apartment several years ago. Like you, I had found the telltale signs of poo and gnawed things. Which I thought was strange since I did, indeed, own a cat.

I went out, bought traps and placed them around the apartment to catch the offending rodents. One week. Two weeks went by without any success... from the traps or the cat.

One night, I'm sitting on the couch watching TV with my cat. Suddenly, I hear the mouse. Plain as day with no regard to the fact that there's activity in the apartment, the mouse starts scurrying around in my kitchen.

I look at Shadow Cat, thinking that at least the curiosity part of his brain will take hold and he'll go check it out. Instead, he looks back at me as if to say,"Hey, are you gonna do something about that, or what?"

I head into the kitchen and reposition one of the traps to a better location. Thinking I've scared the mouse away for the night, I sit back down to watch more TV (next to my cat who still hasn't moved).

Less than 15 minutes later: SNAP! Apparently, I had the world's dumbest mouse in my apartment. And yet, my cat was less than motivated to do anything about it. Even after the SNAP!, he remained planted on the couch.

So regardless of what cartoons teach us, not every cat is a mouser. Some are just fat, lazy creatures content on eating Science Diet and having their bellies scratched with no desire to hunt small, furry annoyances.

Good luck with your mouse...

Kristin said...

Oh, Shadow! The lazy cat! Our house has always had a mouse hating cat in residence. I'm just not used to these city mice.

The tall as of last night is one mouse in the trap. We put the trap out and 15 minutes later snap! I made the misstep of asking Chris if everything was ok when he went to check. He used the words "Splatter" and "Wall". Ew.

Unknown said...

My dad was always a stickler for REMOVING the dead mouse from the trap and reusing it (the trap).

He was the only member of the family who would actually do this. The rest of us argued that mousetraps are cheap enough that reuse is no necessary.