Coffee Break with Liz and Kate » mouse

Liz’s rant: Of mice and mad

Liz — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 05:05:14 +0000

Remember when I had a little issue with a mouse in the house? Well, they’re back. And it’s not even late fall.

I likely wouldn’t have known had I not decided to fix muffins for breakfast (yet more proof that cooking is over-rated at best).

I heated up the oven and reached into the oven drawer to get the muffin tin, only to find nasty little black pellets in 11 of 12 muffin rounds.

Alas the muffin baking was promptly canceled and I was sick at my stomach. I yelled for my son and announced the dilemma, at which point he started making those creeped-out gestures. I told him we were in for another fight – that I’d need his help with this one (at which point, he asked to go out and play).

Fine. Go. I’ve been dealt worse. I’ll handle it myself, I thought, playing total martyr.

I’d have to now disinfect everything in the kitchen (which would lead to total disinfection of the HOUSE), drag out the stupid mouse traps (and I think we all know the only ones that really work are the neck-snappers) and declare war – again – on the mice.

Unfortunately, I feel more like Bill Murray’s character in Caddyshack. We all know the groundhog won out in the end.

So at the risk of sounding like I’m giving up, I must ask you, the readers, to provide a helpful hint or two for ridding the house of the ratty rodent(s) and disinfecting without going crazier than I already am.

Meanwhile, I’m headed to the health food store for a case of peppermint oil. Apparently if you douse a cotton ball with the oil and set them in “mice friendly” locales, it wards off the little varmints. (Another suggestion was to place snake poop in mousy places. I will sooooo not be going there…)

I figure bleach is the best disinfectant for the dishes. Not that I’ll ever want to eat out of them or cook with them again, anyway.

I will be waiting patiently for your responses. So HURRY UP!

-Liz

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

Want to submit your own story to be considered for the Guest Headline post to run on Fridays? Just let us know at lizandkate@live.com.

Liz’s Rants – The mouse saga continues

Liz — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:50:36 +0000

Here’s a quick update on the mouse… or mice. Or, following the goose/geese singular to plural, is it mouse/meese?
Whatever the case, our mice/meese status changed a mere 3 minutes before University of Louisville captured its first Big East title (see, Dad? I do pay attention.)
The loud snap from the kitchen found Colton and I staring at eachother, knowing that we knew that a mouse, a trap, and a stale piece of bagel had just wrapped up a short-lived (don’t say it) battle.
But that wasn’t the worst part – I mean, knowing that we were mouse murderers. The worst part was that we were forced to address the situation and dispose of snap-neck mouse.
To be fair, in a seven-year-old boy’s eyes, this is an adventure, that least to a certain degree. As I bravely entered the kitchen, ever so carefully peeking around the corner, he walked on my heels, cackling with glee for adventure’s sake.
Until I squealed. And he jumped five feet in the air. There was great vengeance in that from my perspective.
“I thought you weren’t scared.”
“I’m NOT!”
“Then be a good boy and get that mouse outta here.”
“No way, Mother.”
It was clear he was going to be a follower, not a leader. I really thought I’d taught him better – taught him to stand up and, well, take the lead.
No go.
“Ok,” I said. “Let’s get shoes and coats on.”
It’s amazing the things you can come up with as a way to procrastinate. I’d just bought us at least three minutes.
Then I went after a plastic bag, which we’d use to dispose of the body. For the first time since catching a glimse of the mouse in the corner of our eyes, we were getting an up-close look at the crime scene. There was no way I was going to risk touching the mouse carcass.
So we scrambled to find something long and sturdy – winding up with a piece of cardboard – and pushed the trapped mouse within easy reach. Colton held the bag, I lifted the trap and dumped the dead body in the bag.
“You DID it, Mother!”
I hate to admit it, but the worst part had truly been the anticipation of ridding the house of the mouse. We’d pulled the disposal off without a hitch.
I was almost gloating when i relayed the news to Dad this afternoon.
“One down!” he’d said.
I read between the lines that I knew he didn’t need to say aloud. Because he’d said them before. “Where there’s one mouse, there are 50.”
Looks like I’ll need some more mouse traps.

Liz’s Rants – No cat… and the mice are playing

Liz — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:37:27 +0000

Our only face-to-face confrontation came several weeks ago in the kitchen. The stare-down would have been laughable had his beady little eyes not been so… beady. I remember how he sat on the kitchen counter, glaring at me as if I had invaded his space. Unfortunately, I broke the stare down, turning my attention to a zipped baggie of chocolate chip cookies only a couple of feet away.
“Are you kidding me?” I said to the two-inch varmint. “You got into the cookies?”
My conversation continued for several minutes.
“The bottom line,” I’d said, “is that I don’t want you in the house. You wanna play under the house or in the yard? Have at it. But you are not to come in the house.Do I make myself clear?”
Then I gave him the look.
In my opinion, there is only one thing worse than having a mouse in the house. And we won’t even go there. The “other thing” is bad enough outside. And if I ever found one inside? Let’s just say there would been no conversation. After a blood-curdling scream, I would have promptly passed out, flat on the floor.
Anyway, being one who doesn’t always jump feet first into things I don’t want to deal with, I spent the next few days hoping our little talk had gotten to him. That he understood: stay out or I employ the traps.
But no. A few days later, tell-tale signs were too obvious to deny.
For Colton’s sake, as well as my own, we purchased live-catch traps.
Within 12 hours, we’d made our first catch. Colton even volunteered to release him back into the wild of the city. And so it went, as we did what any Mickey-Mouse-loving person would do.
“You’re free!” we told the rodent. “And don’t come back.”
We seemed to have made it through the next week or so mouse-free. Until Colton asked me to bring toilet paper for the downstairs bathroom. (The fact that Colton can use more toilet paper in one day than most people use in a month is another column.)
When I opened the door under my sink, what I discovered was shocking, to say the least: four brand new rolls of toilet paper, shredded into tiny bits. It appeared mice could go through as much toilet paper as Colton.
But I had bigger problems, now. Not only were the mice having a, uh, field day in my kitchen, they were invading the upstairs – and that’s a long way to go in mice miles.
Clearly, I would need a better plan. No more Ms. Nice to the Mice. This was war.
We made the trek back to the store and stared at the different traps. Glue traps were out. Effective? Yes. But then I still had to play executioner. Rat bait? I don’t think so. The last thing I want is dead mice rotting under the house. We had one option: neck-snappers.
“You can’t kill it, Mom!”
“Watch me.”
I found what appeared to be the perfect pair of snappers – if there is such a thing. They operated similar to a clothes pin. Once the mouse was ousted, all I had to do was release the pressure from the clip, and out the mouse would pop. Except that these wonder traps didn’t work. Both were broken. We never even got out of the gate with them. So we retired into the family room a couple hours before bedtime. About an hour later, we heard a noise in the kitchen.
“What was that, Mom?”
“No clue. Old houses tend to crack and creak from time to time,” I’d said.
Unless that wasn’t a crack or creak.
“That mouse better not be in there,” I said, walking into the kitchen. Colton followed, giggling in a way that left no doubt that he hoped it was a mouse – and we’d get to see it, up close and personal.
The only thing we saw was the baggie of brownies, chewed into and pushed onto the floor. And on the counter – a single mouse dropping.
He’d left his calling card.
The next day, I set out in search of the good, old-fashioned mouse traps. The rectangle of death, as I’m sure it’s known in the rodent world. I was in uncharted territory.
So much so that I called my male neighbor over to set the traps. He held them while I spread a small amount of peanut butter, right on the center of the trap. Then we set the traps, strategically placing them throughout the kitchen.
Part of me dreaded finding the half-decapitated mice. I quickly reminded myself I was at war. And I would do whatever I had to do in the name of a mouse-free house.
Nevertheless, I’d walked into the kitchen a little more gingerly that next morning, resigned to carrying out my part of the mouse-disposal bargain. I sort of gave the first trap a sideways glance in an effort to ease into looking. Then I did a double-take. No mouse. I went to the next trap. Again, no mouse.
Hmmm.
I turned on the ceiling lights and went about fixing breakfast.
“Maybe they’d seen I meant business,” I thought. “Maybe they’ve finally surrendered.”
As my eyes adjusted to the light of morning, though, something seemed somehow different about the traps. From a distance, they looked a little bare.
“No way,” I said out loud.
As I approached the traps, I could almost hear the mice, cheering with mouse glee and chanting, “Yes way!”
They’d eaten every bit of peanut butter off the traps. Licked them clean.
Are you kidding me?