The Great Mouse Caper

December 6, 2007

The mudroom

The covered gap

The mouse hole and glue board

Mouse caught!

Be thankful you are not me.

This morning, I woke up as usual, bright and early at 5:00 am and got dressed to go to the gym. I recently finished the mudroom in our house and when I reached in the cubby to pull my shoes out, a little furry thing brushed my arm as it raced out. Apparently I’d spooked a mouse out of it’s nice, warm, sweatsock smelling new home. He raced to the left and under the door into the closet in the mudroom.

I’m glad it was me because if this had happened to Julie, the twins would have been born on the spot. Being the cool, calm, collected man that I am, I knew that if I opened the door and tried to get the mouse with a shoe, he would probably be much quicker than me and get away some other place. I also knew that if I left at all he might get out and end up who knew where. It was only 5:00 am so I was the only one up. Julie was in the recliner in our room and it’s a monumental task for her to get out of it so I didn’t want to call her to come help. Somehow I needed to secure the mouse while I could get traps. What to do, what to do… Lucky for me I’d watched plenty of MacGyver growing up. I looked around and there just happened to be some wrapping paper in the mudroom. Also some tape. Hey it’s Christmas! MacGyver got lucky sometimes too! The gap was too tall to be covered by the tape alone. So I grabbed the wrapping paper and tore off a piece long enough to cover the bottom of the door. Then taped all around the wrapping paper to seal the gap completely. Then I went to see if we had mouse traps. No luck, so I went to the Wal-Mart down the street and got a nice flat glue board.

When I got back and walked in the mud room door I heard the wrapping paper rustling a bit. He was trying to get out. I knew that paper wouldn’t hold up long against mouse teeth so I had to hurry. I taped the glue board to the floor right in front of the wrapping paper and then got a knife and cut a little perfect sized mouse hole in the bottom of the paper so there was now a way out. Then I waited. He didn’t come. Too smart for that I’m sure. So I turned the downstairs lights off, but turned on the bathroom light so some light would spill over into the mudroom and through the mouse hole, letting him know there was a way out. That did the trick. 5 minutes later I had our mouse! So that’s my excuse for missing my workout today!

Posted in Family Life