City Girl V's Country Mouse

We have a mouse in the house. In da house people! And......I do believe that he/she/it? has out witted me. For now. Now this country living is wonderful and I am enjoying my new life here in small town AUS, but there are just some things that take a lil ole city girl like myself some getting use to. Like trying to catch an obviously brilliant mouse.

I first discovered that we had a mouse under the house (in the guest suite of all places. Guess he/she/it thinks it's a guest now or something.) when the dogs wouldn't stop barking, and barking, and for the love of my sanity.......barking.  Upon further investigation the mouse and I.......met. Sort of. It happened in a flash, we saw each other and we both took off running in opposite directions. Good plan. Me upstairs, mouse downstairs. Problem solved, right? My helpful husband, country born and bred, told me that I was going to have to catch it one way or another because where there's one..........

Next day I set my newly aquired traps, and smugly walk up stairs thinking this would be the end of it. Good bye mouse. HA! Checking the trap first thing the next morning I discover the cheese was GONE and no mouse. What the? Re-set trap with bigger piece of cheese. That'll get him/she/it. Who's the genius now?! Yeah.

Next morning, check traps. Cheese gone AGAIN! No mouse. Ok, maybe country girls know automatically what to do, but me, no I don't. So I take the traps back to the hardware guy here in my tiny little town and tell him about the adventures of country mouse v's city girl and tell him that these traps must be faulty or something. After much gawfawing, thigh slapping and shaking of his head he tells me to try again, the traps aren't faulty. Maybe try using pumpkin seeds, he offers. Mice like pumpkin seeds apparently.

So back home to set traps again for this furry genius. Next morning, no mouse but the cheese is still in place. Ah-ha! He/she/it must have moved on/out. Who cares where he/she/it went as long as he/she/it went. Two days go by, no mouse detected. Even the dogs stop barking at the wall. I proclaim Victory!

But then, the next morning as I am sitting sipping my all important FIRST coffee of the day (and you know how important the first one is) and blog surfing.......I see a flash. It's funny how in 2 seconds you can have quite a lot of thoughts as to what it could actually be, then looking down I see this furry genius sitting there looking all "cute" as my daughter called him/she/it, staring at me, almost..... daring me. I certainly didn't think it was cute when hot coffee spilled all over my lap as I tried to get up out of the chair and run screaming into my 17yr old daughters bedroom!

So now we have 2 wild looking women (pj's and bed hair....you get the picture) and two little doggies also wearing their pink pj's (we're from the city remember? That seems to expalin a lot for my neighbours). Funny thing is that the dogs did nothing. No reaction what so ever. Like aren't Terrier's supposed to want to hunt and capture (or kill, whatever) this furry genius?! But no. So teen daughter and I come up with a plan after much screaming and threats to move out and leave the house to the mouse. We decide to suck him/she/it up in the vacuum and leave it for my country boy/husband to dispose of. Sounds like a good plan to us. Easy, clean, no blood.

Ok, so we didn't think it through very well, and we're not very good at this sort of thing. Like, wildlife. At this moment my country boy/husband rings to wish us a good morning. I tell him what's happening and he cracks up laughing so hard, and unbeknowns to me puts me on speaker phone so the guys at work can hear what's going on and get a big laugh too. Great, thanks honey. Just what I need. So, the mouse disappears yet again and I'm still trying to figure out a way to catch he/she/it, this furry genius.

Any suggestions? Please no ridicule. I feel enough of that from the mouse.


Love Annie Oakley.