Of Mice and Minute Rice

*This post is not for the faint of heart. Just warning you.


It's that time of year again. Time for hot chocolate, big coats, and...mice. Oh yes. Were you not aware of this? You didn't know that mice don't like cold weather, but they really like heated parsonages? I didn't know this either until a few years ago when we moved into our church manse and suddenly discovered when the cold weather struck that we were ,in fact, running a bed and breakfast for Montrose's rodent population.


For those of you who are new to my blog I will catch you up to speed. When I first started blogging about our "situation" I had about 3 people reading my blog regularly. Funny thing happened, my readership practically doubled to six people when I started talking about the mice. It was when my blog really started hopping. :) This is how it happened- it began with a chase through the playroom with a broom and turned into Sarah catching a mouse with HER HANDS and bathing it. She then placed it under a lamp to dry. Despite the tragic drowning of that mouse, we figure that is when word got out around Montrose that we were running a full service spa. We subsequently baked one, smushed one, dismembered one and I screamed so loud I gave one a heart attack. No lie.


Well, we thought we had this "situation" under control. We paid big money and ordered these fancy plug in things that guaranteed us no rodents, bears or big foots would come within a million miles of our house. We rested peacefully in this security until just a few weeks ago when, it turns out, the dern things only work during the seasons when we weren't having problems anyway!!! You see where this is going? You know what I am about to tell you? Brace yourself people....THEY'RE BAAAACKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!


It started when I found two in the same week, dead in my flower vases. I keep them under the sink and I just happened to notice that while they were not holding any beautiful, fresh flowers, they were currently occupied by MICE! Dead ones, thankfully. Poor little fellas fell in and couldn't get back out. A trillion dollars spent on mouse traps and they prefer my crystal vases. As I shared this with my friend Karen, she remarked that I probably had never intended them for that use when I received them as wedding gifts. Uh, no. We also marveled at how far I have come in my dealings with the rodent population when I told her about my examination of the mice and that one of the mice was really chunky. I don't mean that mean y'all. I'm a chunky girl. I was just observing that these mice must be living it up in my kitchen!!!


A couple of weeks ago I experienced a mouse sighting that I may never recover from as long as I live. I was having a really bad day and I went to my room to lay in the bed and cry. I'm just bein' honest. Well, I pulled up the pillow....shudder, scream, freak out, SCREAM, SCREAM LOUDER! Yes, A MOUSE IN OUR BED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you know how many times Josh had assured me in the past that they could not get into our bed????? Needless to say, I got over my need to cry in the bed. In fact, I was over my need to SLEEP in the bed for a while. Our bed is now booby trapped with mouse traps. Very decorative and romantic. :)


So, we continued to see evidence of the critters, but no actual sightings for a while. I haven't caught anymore in my vases. Well, yesterday I went to get a ziplock bag out of the cabinet and I saw something move! I screamed. (This is what I do. I scream.) I looked back thinking it would have run away, but it hadn't. Okay, brace yourself again....IT. WAS. IN. THE. BAG. OF. RICE. I could totally throw up right now writing that. Now, I know better y'all. I know better than to leave a bag of rice in the cabinet. City girl Emily did not know that, but country girl Emily has learned that. It had just been so long since we had any problems that I let my guard down. Back to the rice bag....It just sat there. I looked it in it's creepy little eye and the stupid thing thought it was hiding. I tried to call Josh. He didn't answer. I came up with a plan. I grabbed a plastic box out of the playroom and a spatula. Oh yeah, I was going to do this. By the time I went to scoop the rice bag and the mouse into the box, it lept out to the back of the cabinet! I thought he would sneak out, but he didn't! HE CAME LEAPING BACK OUT AT ME!!!!!!!!!!! I was screaming, the kids were screaming. He finally just ran away. I decided I was going to skip the cardio part of the Shred because my heart was getting enough pumping for the next two weeks. Josh called back. I answered with, "OH.MY.GOSH!! OH.MY.GOSH! THERE WAS A MOUSE IN THE RICE AND I WAS GOING TO SCOOP IT WITH A SPATULA AND IT JUMPED AT ME AND NOW IT'S GONE!!!!!!!!" I can't believe that man still comes home, y'all.


He does and today he was home for a snow day. He personally got to witness another lunchtime mousecapade. Obviously not learning my lesson, I once again went to get a ziplock bag and 2, TWO, mice leisurely walked to the other side of the cabinet. Like, they're just at home now. I'm pretty sure I heard one tell the other, "Oh, that's just the screaming lady. She won't hurt us. She just screams." Well, they had another thing coming because the screaming lady's husband was home and when I start screaming, well, it gets on his nerves. So he came to investigate and they were still there. He went and got some traps and while he was gone, one of the mice got trapped under one of my cookbooks! Seriously. Josh caught him on a trap and then invaded the kitchen with his gun. I have a picture but he would never speak to me again if I put it on here and Valentine's Day is coming and I really want my present, so I will abstain.


Josh is currently cleaning the kitchen as my weak heart cannot handle any more mouse sightings for the day. I am sharing this story because I am pretty sure your life has been incomplete without my mouse stories for so long. Just to recap, here are all of the ways to kill a mouse:


*drowning

*baking

*microwaving (oh you don't even want to know)

*heart attack

*smushing

*dismemberment

*gluttony?? (Josh just found 2 dead in the high cabinet over the stove and a chewed up, empty container of cake icing. You don't know how bad I wish I was kidding.)


*cookbook avalanche





*Please do not report us to PETA. This little guy brought this on himself. Just sayin'....