Things that make me go, "EEK!"

Once again, I really don't mind having a husband who travels, but on nights like last night, I could have used an at-home Hubs.

I was sitting in the basement watching a HORRIBLE movie, doing some work on the computer and had just clicked over to write a blog post about my favorite things when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. You know when you think you see a bug crawling, but it's not a bug because it's way too big? Yeah, one of those.

All the lights were off, because I was in movie theater mode, and I was looking at the computer screen, so I brushed it off as something in the movie playing tricks with my eyes.

Then I saw it again, going back the other way. So I put the laptop down, criss-cross-applesauced my legs and stared.

No denying what it was when it ran from the Bose speaker to a pillow on the floor.

A MOUSE!!!!!!!

I sat, wide-eyed and staring at the pillow. I glanced at Zoe who was perched next to me on the couch, also staring at the pillow.

Crap, that means it's NOT the valium I'm taking playing tricks on me. She saw it, too.

Three seconds later, it scurried back from the pillow to the speaker.

Zoe and I exchanged glances and I said, "Go get it!"

She hopped of the couch and started sniffing and wining at the spot, then paced around the entertainment center. I, heroically hopped onto the footrest/storage trunks and stared, trying to figure out what the heck to do now. I told Zoe to stay and bolted upstairs, grabbing the biggest, heaviest, easiest to bleach clean bowl I could find. I ran back down to find Zoe in the same position. I figure if she's born to hunt, Mickey hasn't gotten past her.

Oh, and I'd like to take a moment to say that I LOVE animals, and I would never kill something, just because, but the moment I saw Mickey scurrying around my nice clean basement, all I could think of was, "DIE MOUSE DIE!!!" Ick, what has it touched or crawled on?! Was he alone? Does he have a mouse family?! The basement just flooded and we didn't see a mouse home when we were re-doing it. OH GRAVY! What if they're in the CEILING! AHHHHH!! Mice dropping all overhead! They're going to be crawling up my pajama legs. They're everywhere!!!

Ok. Deep breath. I stand on the trunk with bowl in hand weighing the situation. I could try to scare it out and try to get Zoe to catch it. But then what if she bites it in half? And eats it? Then I'm going to have mouse blood and guts to clean up, and I will HAVE to clean out Zoe's mouth. Can dogs gargle Listerine? And then I'll probably vomit, so I'd have to clean that up, too. And if SHE scares it out and I can slam the bowl down and trap it, then what in the hay bales am I going to do with it? Try to slip some cardboard under the bowl, take it outside to release it into the wild and risk having it crawl up my arm and bite me? Leave the bowl over it with something to weigh it down? Then just leave it there to die? Three problems with that; 1. that's horrible 2. I'm sure it would be going nuts and we'd end up with a bowl sized hole in the carpet while it tried to escape and 3. that's the kids playroom, so what am I going to do? Say, "Just leave that bowl and phonebook in the middle of the floor. DON'T touch it! Mommy's waiting on a mouse to die."

We don't have any mouse traps (real ones) in the house. I could RUN across the street to the Wal-mart-ish store and hope no one wakes up. I can't call the neighbors because it's almost midnight and this isn't a life or death situation. Hmmm.

After 20 minutes of standing and staring, I finally decide what to do. Leave the light on, hoping this makes the mouse stay in the dark corner of the entertainment center, RUN upstairs and barricade the basement door with a big, yellow beach towel and my laptop bag.

I thought about taping the covers around the kids and myself, but thought that might be overkill.

I then texted Hubs to say, "THERE'S A FREAKING MOUSE IN THE BASEMENT." He calmly replied that he thought he heard something in the ceiling the other week (AHHHH! I was right! They're everywhere and will be dropping on my face while I sleep!!!!). Ugh.

After a not-s0-g00d-night's sleep, I tossed the kids in the car and headed across the street to shop for mouse traps. I tried to call before going to see if they had them, and Customer Service said, "Hang on and I'll transfer you to health and beauty." Umm. Really? Mousetraps are located by mascara?! Ick!

I treated myself to a mocha, because if you're shopping for mouse traps before breakfast, you deserve a little something happy.

I went in thinking I'd have to get something like this:

And the thought of having to dispose of it and keep the kids and dog away from it was skeeving me out, big time. I also wondered how many times I'd snap my own finger in the stinkin' things before I actually got them loaded and set.

We did NOT head to the Health and Beauty section, but instead wandered over to where bug spray was, and there they were. Good, old, wooden mouse traps. But, to the left were bait and wait traps. Of course, they had poison and the dog/kid factor worried me.

There were also these

But then I'd have a mouse on glue paper, and again, there's the kids and dog factor.

Then I saw perfection:

No view, no touch, ignorance is bliss mouse traps. Slap a little peanut butter in there, set it and forget it! There's even a little spot on the top that says, "Set" or "Mouse in Trap," and if it gets tripped with no mouse, it has a "Not Set" button that flips up. I resisted the urge to purchase everyone they had and just got a 2 pack. Well see what happens, however, knowing my luck, I'll have some super smart mouse who flips the trap over, peels back the tape, eats the peanut butter and leaves, smearing mouse-feet peanut butter prints all over the carpet.

And then we'll have ants.