Of Mice and Men and Mom

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, except for that @#!&* mouse!

Last holiday season, I decided to try something different and put the Christmas tree up in our loft.  That way, it could be viewed from the Great Room below and the twinkling lights would be visible through the front windows of the house.  Humming holiday carols, I lugged the heavy boxes of decorations from our outdoor shed and struggled up three flights of stairs toward the loft.  By the time I reached the landing with box number two, my calves were on fire and I was regretting not spending more time at the gym!  I quickly revised my plan and dumped all of the boxes in our master bedroom.  The bedroom is much larger than the adjacent loft, so I figured it would be a better ‘working’ room to untangle lights, wrestle with the tree and organize ornaments.  And besides, I didn’t think my legs could go much further. 

As I peeled open the cardboard flaps of the large Christmas tree carton, a pungent aroma wafted up through the plastic evergreen boughs.  Can artificial trees go bad? I thought to myself.   Fake trees weren’t supposed to smell, and this tree smelled nasty!  Hopeful that it was just musty from eleven months of storage in that cold dark shed, I optimistically fluffed the branches and tried to shake out the odor.  The tree was at least ten years old, so I expected that some of the needles may fall off, but this tree was beginning to rival Charlie Brown’s.  It appeared to have a bad case of the Mange; large bare patches of too-green wire peeked through the scantily clad limbs.  

                I turned the box over to shake out the last remaining parts of the tree, but along with the musty evergreen pieces came a bundle of loose plastic needles woven together with Christmas tinsel.  Upon the lumpy nest rested a small grey mouse.  He appeared to have just awoken from a nap and was now glancing around trying to get his bearings.  After a couple stunned seconds of staring at one another, we both screamed and scurried in opposite directions.  He headed under the bed, and I raced downstairs.  Slowly my mind began to piece together the clues…the bare patches of branches were really chewed needles being used for mouse bedding, and that nasty scent was an aroma of plastic evergreen laced with mouse poop.  Ewwww!  I made the decision right then to buy a new tree, but that didn’t solve my larger problem.  I now had a mouse, loose in my bedroom.

Being the mother of two preteen boys, I immediately placed a bounty on the mouse.  Whoever successfully trapped the rodent and removed it from the house would get an entire week off from chores.  Soon my bedroom was a maze of small wooden traps filled with peanut butter, cheese and one even used a small cookie for bait.  My husband joined in on the hunt with a complicated trap involving some string, a bucket of water and some sort of mini mouse diving board.  After two weeks, my three wise men were outfoxed by the rodent and running out of ideas.  The guys had caught our poor bloodhound’s ears in the traps at least 6 times, the bucket of water was overturned twice and I had bought enough peanut butter to last most families six months, but the now chubby mouse seemed to be in one piece, and was becoming quite skilled at stealing bait from traps.  The boys did learn however where the mouse was living, he’d taken up residence in my underwear drawer.  I had hidden some chocolate for the boys Christmas stockings in that drawer because I knew they wouldn’t be caught dead rifling through women’s undergarments.  But apparently, the mouse didn’t have those same scruples.  He’d made a nest out of a particularly pricey pair of black satin bloomers and had polished off most of the holiday chocolate while lounging in his comfy nest.  Leaving the black panties in place, I removed the rest of the articles from the drawer and replaced them with three wooden traps, but this time I used chocolate for bait.

After two more weeks, the now chubby diabetic mouse was still living in my bureau and enjoying the array of food and chocolate that would magically appear on the small wooden trays for him.  His nest was positioned at the back of the drawer, so no matter how quickly we tried to open it; he always seemed to have ample time to jump out and hide.  We’d find evidence of his nighttime excursions as he polished off the gum and breath-mints in the bottom of my purse, or tried to steal cinnamon flavored dental floss for his nest.

I was beginning to accept the reality that I may have to share my bedroom with this mouse all winter.  I tried to look on the bright side, after all, spring was only four months off and surely he would move out then.  I was so used to the sound of snapping mouse traps that I no longer awoke in the middle of the night when they’d spring.  And since all of my underwear was now crammed into one drawer with my stockings and slips, it would be great motivation to downsize and get a jump start on spring cleaning.  Some people actually have mice as pets, so surely they must have some endearing qualities even if they were not readily apparent to me thus far.  And didn’t Psalms say something about treasuring all of God’s creatures?  With this new positive outlook, I began to return to my normal routine and tried to forget about the small mouse that lived in my dresser.

One Monday morning I was running behind schedule.  Clad in my robe with my hair up in curlers, I raced around the bedroom trying to brush my teeth with one hand.  I yanked open my only dresser drawer and leaned over while I pulled a knot of stockings out.  As I jerked the pantyhose, a small grey object sort of sprang down the front of my robe. With the toothbrush still in one hand and the stockings in the other I glanced down to my cleavage and could see a small lump under the fabric and a tiny sliver of light grey fur peeking between the lapels of my robe.  The lump was warm, and soft for the most part, except for some scratchy pieces which I imagined were his tiny clawed feet.  He wasn’t moving, but I figured it was either an act and he hoped I didn’t notice him, or he was stunned and any minute would come to his senses and begin frantically clawing to get out.  Tolerating the mouse in my underwear drawer was one thing, having the creature down the front of my robe, was quite another!  Immediately I threw the stockings and the toothbrush and began madly shaking my robe trying to dislodge the little rodent while hopping on both feet and screaming at the top of my lungs.  My poor husband, oblivious to the recent events, raced into the bedroom convinced that I was either on fire or had somehow accidentally electrocuted myself.  At precisely that moment, the small object in my robe fell out and rolled onto the floor.  It was a hair curler.  Granted, it was a warm grey fuzzy hair curler I reminded my husband as he fell to the floor with tears of hysterical laughter streaming down his face while I tried to defend myself and piece together what was left of my dignity.  The boys also found my ‘encounter’ equally amusing when their father told them about the episode in great detail over breakfast that morning.

We lived through last Christmas with that mouse, and even shared Valentines and Easter with him too.  The boys named him “The Incredible Hanes Hershey Houdini” for his affinity for chocolate and undergarments, and his uncanny ability to escape every trap known to man or mouse.  Eventually the snow melted, spring moved in, and Hanes moved out.  By August, I even mustered the courage to slowly relocate some of my underwear back into the top dresser drawer. 

Life has returned to normal, but now with another holiday season approaching, I’ve found myself wondering about Hanes and his winter housing plans.  When I put my new tree in storage last season, I sealed it in a sturdy rubber tote constructed out of  ½ inch plastic that the clerk assured me was mouse-proof.  But last week I was putting away flower pots in the shed and a familiar odor wafted up through the floorboards of the shed.  I wonder if anyone will mind if I set-up the tree outside on the deck this year?