squeak

Late last night, I was sitting up and reading online a bit when I noticed it. Out of the corner of my eye, a small dark THING ran across the linoleum of my little studio-apartment kitchen.

At first I thought that I'd imagined it--after all, it was late, I was getting very tired, and I have a tendency to "see things" when I'm sleepy. Usually small dark spots on the corner of my vision that disappear when I look at them directly. And yet... I turned in my chair and sat stock-still, staring at the floor where the thing disappeared.

And then I saw it. A small, dark grey mouse popped out from under my refridgerator.

I yelled a little, a choked-back "Gyah!" as I didn't want to wake the neighbors. The mouse turned tail (as it were) and squeezed back underneath the fridge.

This was, of course, enough to both wake me up, and to make me realize just how tired I really was. I looked at the clock. It was about a quarter after midnight. I needed to sleep. But there was a mouse in my kitchen. Not such a disaster, except that my apartment consists of one room, so my kitchen is also my bedroom. A mouse in my bedroom. Eeep.

It was too late to go out and buy a mousetrap--I couldn't think of a place nearby that was open all night and stocked traps. So I did what all geeks with late-night problems would do: I turned to the internet.

A quick google search on "how to catch a mouse" turned up these instructions. I emptied my kitchen garbage can, cut up a cardboard box, and baited a toilet paper tube with a good dollop of peanut butter, and set up the trap as indicated.

Then I went to go take a shower, giving the mouse a bit of privacy in which to explore the trap. I came out of the bathroom perhaps half an hour later, hoping that I'd given the creature enough time to make up his tiny mind about whether to investigate the delicious little treat I'd left for him. Quietly, I snuck up around the corner.

No mouse. Damn.

I sat down at my computer. Fine, I thought, I'll wait him out. He was brave enough to come out while I was sitting right here last time. If I'm still and quiet, he'll come out, take the bait, fall into the garbage can, and I'll take him out and dump him in the woods somewhere. Maybe a late-night drive to the park?

So I waited. And waited. For nearly two hours. By that time it was almost 3 a.m. and I'd seen no sign of my tiny visitor. I was tired.

All right, I told myself. Maybe he'll get a bit braver if I pretend to go to sleep. I'll turn out all the lights and go lay down. Then when I hear the tube fall, I'll go take care of it.

And so I did. I turned off all the lights and crawled under my quilt, then lay there quietly, straining my ears in the dark for the sound of a mouse falling into a garbage can. It was quiet. I fell asleep.

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was check the trap. No mouse. Of course. I left it set.

If I'm lucky, when I get home from work tonight, I'll find a very pissed-off mouse in the bottom of a trash can. You know it's going to be an interesting day when this scenario is a positive outcome.