Despereaux tried to move in…

I think he was going to bring back Ratatouille and the gang, too.

I’m not usually the kind of person who screams easily, and I’m not afraid of mice. But when I’m startled by sudden movement that I’m not expecting, AND it’s a mouse, then screams are bound to happen.

Friday night, I was rearranging things in my closet and suddenly something darted across the floor. I did the normal thing… I screamed. And then I realized it was a mouse so I slammed the closet door shut and went looking for something to trap it with. (My noble husband was eating his dinner in the other room. There could have been a chain saw murderer in there for all he knew since I’m not a screamer. All I got was “are you ok?” Sure, I am… OK – so what if he couldn’t run in to save me. At that point, that was a minor detail.)

I decided that I needed to move the excess stuff off my closet floor in order to have better access for a trap. Plus, I didn’t want the mouse to crawl into the bags I had on the floor (getting ready to wrap Christmas gifts). As I was moving one bag, the mouse darted out from his hiding place. I screamed again. Very loudly, I might add.

I’m really not sure which one of us vacated the closet the quickest. All I knew was that I had to keep him in the bedroom so he didn’t hide somewhere else in the house. I pulled out the bed, both nightstands, the dresser, and the clothes hamper. No mouse. I got a flashlight and looked under things. No mouse. I closed off the heater vents (just in case) and then left the room. I had to go get mouse traps.

I went to Lowe’s and came back with two of the covered traps (to be thrown away) and eight of the sticky glue pads (just in case he brought his family). I could not believe that Lowe’s sold “catch and release” traps. No way… The only mouse I want to release is a dead one into the trash can. I set up the traps according to the directions and went to bed.

Not in my room though. Ron was gifted with my presence in his bedroom Friday night. There wasn’t any way was I going to sleep in a room where I knew a mouse was trapped. When I told him I was sleeping with him, he just laughed.

It worked, though. The trap went off about 7:00 AM on Saturday morning. So, Despereaux is dead.