Of Mice .. and me ...

Oh my gosh ... a mouse just ran behind my desk. Well not so much behind as beside my desk. When I'm facing my computer it's behind. When I'm facing my desk it's beside.

Like two feet away from me.

There is a section of my office - a tiny little cubby under the flight of stairs - that I've been meaning to sort out. It's become a bit of a junk pile.

Cleaning this area was going to be my project for today. I swear it was.

But that is so not going to happen now.

Because there is a mouse living in the cubby under the stairs. Making nests and all kinds of nastiness in old boxes of files and toner cartridges.

There is a book by John Irving ... a children's book ... called "A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound." It is a wonderful, terrifying children's book. The children in the book are being terrorized at night by an awful, horrible sound.

The sound is a mouse.

This week I've been hearing a rustling, scratchy, burrowing sound and I had convinced myself I was hearing things.

I was not hearing things ...

I am currently being terrorized by the sound and sight of a mouse ... in my office.

Where I'm trying to work.

I can't work now because I need my computer to work and when I'm working on my computer my back is to the mouse and I can't function knowing that at any moment the mouse could run up behind me and run across my feet ... or run up the back of my chair and into my hair ...

And I can't turn around and wait for the mouse to reappear because then I'm just sitting turned away from my desk staring at a wall and a printer and everyone will think I'm totally insane.

I'm now sitting in my chair with my legs up in front of me trying to type around my knees ... because that's totally less insane than staring at a wall.

Our office is under attack. So far this summer we've had bed bugs, cockroaches, epic amounts of fruit flies ... and now mice.

I know what you're thinking ... I need a new job.

One with less rodents and bugs.

I agree.

I remember one summer at our family cottage our family was staying in the boathouse. It was a tiny little one bedroom apartment. My parents got the bedroom and my brother and I stayed in beds in the dining/living room.

One night I was sleeping peacefully when I felt something plop onto my sleeping bag and then proceed to skitter down and off the bed.

I was attacked by a mouse.

After calming me down my Dad set a trap and we eventually went back to sleep. Sort of.

I didn't sleep. I was under my sleeping bag.

After what seemed like hours we heard a loud snap followed by several minutes of flipping and flopping.

The mouse was caught but the flipping and flopping didn't stop. It just kept going. Like some torturous punishment for attempting to kill one of God's precious creatures - we all just lay there in silence listening to the mouse slowly and painfully dying.

Finally my Dad had to get out of bed again and take the mouse down to the water to put it out of it's misery.

I think at the time I felt bad for the mouse.

I feel no sympathy for mice now.

I have to use the bathroom and my legs are numb (on account of being up on my chair) and I'm hungry.

I don't want to have to deal with a mouse.

... and I am totally not cleaning out the cubby today.