Time Warp Tuesday --- The Mouse

One of the things my mom was always afraid of was mice. There was a time she moved out of the house for a few days and stayed with my grandma until a mouse was caught. One of my grandma's favorite stories is the time my mom called her on the phone and was standing on the chair screaming cause she saw a mouse while my older brother (who was only a baby at the time) was laying on the floor crying and my mom was afraid to get down and get him.

So one morning I hear my mom scream and come running up the steps. My dad soon went running down and before long yelled my name to come help him --- my mom and saw a mouse and it was now under our microwave. I was still half asleep and in my pajamas, but my only job was to hold a yard stick and make sure the mouse didn't come out while my dad went to the basement to get some things. Every once in a while it would peek out and I would tap the yard stick on the counter to scare it back under.

When my dad returned, he had mouse traps and a squirrel trap (a big cage that the sides would slam shut when something touched the middle). There was a small area behind the kitchen sink that my dad placed a mouse trap, the squirrel trap, and another mouse trap all in a line. He also filled the sink with hot water so the mouse would have no place to go.

My dad took the yard stick from me and pushed the mouse toward all his contraptions. The mouse ran over the first trap, through the second, and over the third --- none of them went off. My dad slammed the stick at it and again, it ran back through all 3 traps with no success and back under the microwave. I got the stick back while my dad started to fiddle with the squirrel trap and figure out why it didn't work.

As a stood there still half asleep, I didn't realize that the mouse snuck back out to the counter. I pushed it toward the traps, and again, it ran through all of them with none of them going off. My dad told me to push it into the hot water, and I overshot on my attempt and it flew to the floor and started running toward me.

Now at this point, keep in mind I had just gotten out of bed and was barefoot and with the mouse running at me, my dad yells, "STEP ON IT!!!". Um, I don't think so! I did take a nice kick at it though and it flew all the way across the kitchen, slammed against the cupboards and fell to the floor. It continued to stagger toward me, and this time I took the yard stick and a nice full swing at this thing. If this were golf, it would have been a perfect 250 yard drive down the middle! It was enough to put an end to the mouse, and I went back to bed.