Several hours after the mouse in my printer, I can’t stop thinking about it and it gives me the creeps all over again. In fact, first thing this morning I asked Joe about setting traps before he was even fully awake. When I sat down at my computer I was jumpy, like any minute a mouse was gonna come out and terrorize me. I can’t believe I am so freaked out over mice. I think honestly, I’d rather have a loose snake in my house than a mouse.
My fear of mice goes way back to when I was about 6 years old. I remember vividly getting dressed one morning and the weather had changed so I needed to wear a long sleeve shirt instead of my usual shirts. I knew they were kept in the bottom drawer of my dresser and so I opened it up and reached in and touched something all wet and slimy. I jumped back screaming at the top of my lungs. My mom and dad came running and we discovered a mouse had made a nest in that seldom opened drawer and had given birth to a bunch of slimy babies. I remember running to the bathroom and vomiting when I saw it, so gross was the scene and for days after, even after the drawer had been thoroughly cleaned out and traps set and the clothes washed, I was afraid to open drawers. I remember refusing to wear the clothes that had been in that drawer,even after they had been washed because of mouse cooties. LOL My mom humored me and we gave the clothes to goodwill and that was the end of that. Or you’d think.
When I was a teenager and living in Stillwater we had a den that you had to walk down 2 steps to get to. One day as I was going down the steps I saw a mouse on the fireplace. Just sitting there. I freaked out. I ran and got the Schnauzers, Grover and Fritz from their sunning spot by the back door and threw them into the den so they would catch the mouse. I had heard that Schnauzers were bred to kill mice in mines..or something like that. Grover noticed it and his ears perked up but he didn’t move. Fritz took a couple of steps toward the fireplace but when the mouse moved he hightailed it back up the steps faster than a speeding bullet. And so I got the broom and a frying pan. And I threw the pan at the mouse and surprisingly hit it. Apparently it had already been poisoned somewhere because I barely tapped it and it keeled over dead. And remained on the fireplace covered up with a mop bucket until my dad came home and got rid of it.
Still 47 years after my traumatic mouse experiences I still am so grossed out my mice that when I see one I don’t rest until its gone.
I remember when Mike and I first moved to Houston and into our condominium we had mice. I saw one scurry around the corner one night and I was hysterical. Mike thought my fear of mice was pretty funny at the time. He would set the traps and check them each day to make sure there was no mouse in them. I would inspect every drawer and cabinet and closet for mouse droppings to be sure they were gone. One morning when I went to check a trap there was a note in the trap which had been sprung . Mike had put it there. It said “thanks for the cheese…better luck next time..” Haha. I stil have that note somewhere. And there was always a trap set from that day on and the Meesehunter (Mike) was ready at a moments notice to dispose of any mouse that might terrorize his wife.
Fast forward a few years. Mike was traveling a lot. I was home alone in Muskogee with Chris and Andy who were about 2 and 4 at the time. One night I saw a mouse. Since Mike could not come home from Bottswana Africa to take care of it for me, I went out and bough traps myself. After nearly snapping my finger off trying to set them, my father in law Bill came and set the traps for me placing them behind heavy furniture where the boys couldn’t reach them. Andy was into everything at that age. In fact, the poison control people knew me by name…”poison control, oh hi LeeAnn, what did Andy eat this time?” LOL So there was no way I could just put out d con. A few days passed and I would shine the flashlight behind the hutch every morning to see if the mouse was there. Then one morning, I looked behind and there it was…dead…as mice should be. Now that left the problem of what to do from there. I certainly wasn’t gonna touch the thing to get him out of my house. I thought about getting the shop vac and sucking the trap and mouse up into it but was afraid it wouldn’t clear the hose. So I called Mike in Africa and asked him how to handle the situation. He called his dad who came over and removed the mouse.
The next night I caught another one and Bill came back again to dispose and reset traps. The 3rd or 4th time he came over he brought me a package of rubber gloves and a gripper thing with a handle so you didn’t have to get close to pick up the trap, and patiently showed me how to set the traps. Which I did. Not having any cheese, I used cheese nip cracker. I figured that would work just as well. By the time Mike came home weeks later, no more mice had been caught and I figured the house was mouse free. Mike took out one of the traps and burst out laughing when he saw the cheese nip. I figured cheese and crackers would be a good lure. Heck, I would’ve left a cup of wine if I thought it would help catch those horrid things.
The boys knew my fear of mice and so they didn’t dare ask for anything resembling one. No hamsters for me. Creepy. I did give in and let Andy have a guinea pig but only because it was furry and fluffy and I convinced myself it was just a small rabbit.
For the next few years I was “mouse free” because even if there was a mouse,. Mike was there tohandle it. So about 6 months after the divorce, in my new house I was on my own when it came to mice patrol. I set traps in the new house in various places because I figured that at some point I’d have a mouse. And sure enough a few months passed and one day I was in Andy’s closet looking for something and pulled back a tub from the wall and there was a petrified mouse in a trap behind it. I waited patiently for the boys to come home from school. Chris was first to come in..”Chris, there’s a dead mouse in Andy’s closet I need for you to get rid of for me.”..Chris “why me? Its in Andy’s closet..let him get it.”…So then Andy comes in and I tell him Andy “there’s a mouse in your closet” and “its gross and its dead and I need you to get rid of it”. Andy” well Chris is the oldest and so he should be the man of the house and get the mouse out. I ended up getting it out myself. Which was a good thing because I proved to myself that I was a CAPABLE Independent woman and that I could handle dead mice without a husband.
A few years later I had a pack rat underneath my stove that terrorized me. The boys were off to college and the first time I saw it I freaked totally out. I couldn’t even walk into the kitchen for days knowing it was in there somewhere. Finally, I decided that it wasn’t gonna go away on its own. So I pulled out the drawer under the stove and found among other things an earring, a sock, a hair clip, assorted dog food kernels but thankfully no rat.. I cleaned it out really well, put poison in the space, set two rat traps with cheese nips (lol) and bought one of those sonic thing you plug in to discourage mice. I got an extension cord and plugged the sonic thing in under the stove. After a bout a week passed I pulled out the drawer and there was no sign of the packrat. No droppings, the cheese nips were intact, the poison hadn’t been touched. I kept the sonic device in place but the pack rat had packed up and gone elsewhere. Thank God! When Joe came down to Muskogee the first time he said “why is there an extension cord running from the wall to the floor and underneath the stove. I told him that it was my sonic keep the mouse out thing and he just acted like I wasn’t insane.
I have been known to see a mouse and for days jump from chair to chair so my feet don’t touch the floor where the mouse might be. And I freaked out one morning when I saw what I though was mouse droppings on my kitchen floor. Turned out it was a coffee ground from where I had tossed the used coffee filter to the trash and missed the day before. Thought I had them all swept up!
Some things are just not logical…like my fear of mice. I mean I know they are nasty little creatures but seriously has anyone ever been attacked my a mouse? I swear the mouse that was in my printer last night glared at me in the split second before I closed him back up in the paper tray. I have given birth twice with NO DRUGS, I have traveled all over the country on my own, I have gotten up on stage and risked being booed. I have fallen and survived more times than I can remember. I have been attacked by a vicious Yorkie and had rabies shots. Yet, nothing shakes me to the core like a mouse encounter.
Idon’t even like the cartoon mice, Tom and Jerry. I hated the movie the Rescuers because I didn’t think Bianca and whatever his name were cute at all. And my favorite line of the Night before Christmas book is “not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse” Thank goodness cause presents or no presents, I am not going into the living room to see what Santa brought if I know there’s a mouse stirring.
Joe for his part has been very patient with me as I have opened drawers and jumped back like there’s a trap in them. I’m sure that he wondered why I had my tennis shoes on with my robe this morning (so the mouse can’t touch my foot if it runs across the room of course. And as he patiently set the traps for me (with cheese) and placed them in places where Quincy can’t get to them, he hasn’t even laughed out loud at my insanity. I started telling him my mouse experiences and he started talking about butchering hogs when he was a kid “prompting me to say, I’d rather butcher a hog than see a mouse”…though I would prefer neither. LOL And I have forgiven him for the remark he made when he came home last night after me having dumped the live mice outside…He said “honey,theres a mouse out here and he says its cold and wants to know if he can come in.” NOT FUNNY!
Yep,mice top the list of my 10 most hated or feared things. Being stuck in an elevator is a close 2nd.My cousin Roxanne had facebooked earlier before the mouse encounter that she was stuck in an elevator at Denver International Airport waiting for them to come get her out. I wouldn’t have been facebooking had that been me. I would have been passed out in a puddle of pee. I was still empathizing with her and imagining that terror when the mouse decided to surprise me. I may not have walked or ridden my bike yesterday but I got my cardiac workout.
And as soon as I’m sure the RV is mouse free again I will breathe easier.
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