My Michelle Duggar Moment:
119 Mice and Counting

When I moved into this house in March, I discovered that although the previous owners had moved out, their tenants had not. Mice cannot be toilet trained, and I quickly grew tired of cleaning up their poop.

So I bought a mouse trap, filled it with peanut butter and set it beside the mouse hole in the kitchen. Yes, I have an actual mouse hole in my kitchen. Not a cute dome-shaped thing like you see in the Tom and Jerry cartoons. No, this hole is about eight inches long and one inch high, and is hidden inside the pantry. More of a mouse slit than a hole, really.

However, I digress. I set up the mouse trap loaded with peanut butter, and I caught our furry little house mouse the first night. You can imagine my relief.

Unfortunately, the poop continued to flow. So I set the trap again, and caught another mouse. Then another, and another…

Wouldn’t it be funny, I thought, if I ended up catching 19 mice? Then I could write a Michelle Duggar-style blog post called “19 mice and counting.” Get it? Yes, I am sooooo clever.

Well, I was busy the day I caught the 19th mouse, so I didn’t get the blog posting written up. No problem. I figured I’d go for “29 mice and counting.” Assuming, of course, that I actually caught 29 mice. Which was ridiculously unlikely. Right?

Well, last night I caught the 119th mouse, and I’m writing this damned blog post in the hopes that I can make the rodent invasion stop. Somehow, my home has become the vortex of all things furry. I’ve caught so many mice, I’ve actually worn out the springs on three traps, and broken two more while trying to get them set. I now buy mouse traps in packs of six.

Last week, a fat, pregnant mouse waddled past me in the basement. It stopped about three feet from where I was standing and just sat there, staring off into space. When I tried to grab it, I discovered that even fat, pregnant mice can waddle faster than I can lunge. It disappeared into a crack in the wall. 

I now have three traps set in the kitchen, two in the basement and two in the attic. As I sit here, I can hear something chewing inside the wall behind my computer. They’re baaaack…..

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