I am paranoid – paranoid – about mice in our house. (As an aside, searching “mouse” on Flickr was a giant mistake.)
Ugh, just the thought of it sends chills down my spine.
Mice haven’t been an issue in our current house (knock on wood, please God do not let those be famous last words) but there was a period of time when we had a serious issue with them when we lived in our old house. That was just one of the myriad exciting parts of living in a house that was built in 1888. But anyway. I am constantly waiting to find evidence of a mouse in our house, and I think it’s starting to be a problem.
As in, perhaps I need to seek help.
The other day, I saw what was probably a brownie crumb on our kitchen counter and I freaked out, thinking it was mouse droppings. I finally convinced myself that if it was just one, it was probably just a crumb and not a sign of the devil a mouse. I’ve started following the children around with the vacuum cleaner when they eat snacks downstairs.
And as of yesterday, my paranoia is actually keeping me up at night.
We started decorating our house for Christmas yesterday (more on that disaster later) and our tree goes where our dining room table typically sits. The easiest way to move the table to the basement is to move it out on the deck and carry it outside down to the back door. So, in between one trip from the basement to the deck, we left the door open. It was open and unmanned only long enough for me and Andy to walk up the stairs of the deck, grab a chair, and walk back down, but that was long enough for my imagination to run wild. Last night I dreamed that a mouse got in while the door was open, and I remember “seeing” it scurry (ewww even that word freaks me out) up the stairs. When I woke up, I realized it was just a dream, but just because I had dreamed it didn’t mean it wasn’t true, so I literally laid awake for probably close to an hour thinking about whether or not there was a mouse in the basement, how I could find out if there was, and how I could trap the nasty little thing.
I could not get back to sleep because I was so stressed out.
And now that I’m posting about this, it’s going to be just like yesterday when I thought to myself “I really love this pre-lit Christmas tree!” as I plugged in a level of branches, which of course didn’t light. So yeah. Now I am really screwed. I need something like a metal detector that works for mice. Yes, that would be great. Until someone invents one, though, I may never sleep again.
