Last time you left this was a one mouse house. On Sunday it was a one mouse house, on Monday it was a one mouse house, on Tuesday it became a one mouse house with a humane trap in the hall, baited with chocolate buttons but without the usual hall full of things to take to my mother in case the mouse, last seen in the hall, jumped into the shopping for a free ride and a subsequent lark around at my mother’s. Then, on Wednesday, the plot thickened, like soup.
I was in the bathroom, directly above the OT having breakfast in the kitchen. I was thus well placed to hear the cries of: Do NOT bring that in here! NO! NO! Drop It! No! No! No! Don’t drop it! NOT THERE! Now look what you’ve done. Stupid Stupid Stupid animal. NOT YOU! Don’t run under there. BAD CAT! BAD CAT! Oh yes run away out now, that’s such a help. Fetch! Fetch! (Sounds of the back door opening) Come back in here and fetch this now, don’t run away because I’m shouting at you! Come back at once you stupid cat! Stop running away!
Can you deduce what had occurred? Would you like a multi choice prompt? Had 1) the OT dropped his spoon in his porridge; 2) the mayor arrived with the gift of a sack of coal to see us through the winter; 3) Cleo brought in another mouse scampered past the OT, been frightened by the shouting, run back into the utility room and dropped the mouse which had run under the fridge and then had run away herself into the garden and over the fence into next door.
Errr…………….
Time is up and the answer is 3. Well done if you got it.
So, what happened next? Did we: A) ferret behind the fridge, joyfully assisting each other like the well yoked team that we are, finally retrieving the rodent with many a happy cry and putting it outside so it could scamper off to its nice warm nest; B) instantly throw a ‘free pet mouse party’ for the local children with a large ‘hunt your own’ component or C) as it was Wednesday, leave, locking the utility room door so the cats could not bring any more vermin further into the house and then go off to my mother’s as usual because she was expecting us and would fret if we were late.
Yes it was C. Oh sorry, no suspense. Can you guess what we did? Yes we left the damn thing because we had to.
On the way we stopped at the garage round the corner to collect the cream cake I always take.
I sallied into the shop at speed making to zip to the far end of the fridge where the cakes are kept but was stopped in my tracks by a barrier. A barrier of the type you find round road works. So I zipped up the adjacent aisle to encounter another barrier and two workmen in overalls and yellow hats. They were systematically removing the bins that hold the crisps which are all the way round the base of the fridges. They were poking into the hole they’d created under the fridges with long handled traps with trigger grips. They were saying to each other: there it is! No, it’s run back near you. Can you see it? I was in a rush, so I walked to the barrier, reached over it, got the cake and went to the check out.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked the cashier.
She looked at me for several weeks, the colour draining from her face as she peered over my shoulder at the antics behind the barriers. ‘Um……….’ she said………’oh!………..’
‘…………deep cleaning. Thank you, is that all?’
’Tis the season apparently, where’s Cinderella and a pumpkin when you need one? At my mother’s we retrieved the other humane trap that I took down there when Benji brought in a mouse and lost it, a couple of years ago when I was living there. The mouse took up residence in the kitchen drawers and survived for weeks on tea cosies, tea towels and cat food stolen while Benji was asleep.
So this is now a two trap house. Any more and we’ll be the Von Trapps and have to start singing about lonely goatherds as we prance about in pursuit of the vermin.
They’re not even my cats. They belong to the S&H, miles away with his bride and a million unpacked boxes.
In between mindfulness practice I must embark upon radiating ‘This is not my problem field’ vibes because right now I’m just not doing it.
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Eek yeh right oh for goodness sake Laverick.com