It all started with a mouse.

Michael noticed some droppings in the garage, and again when he and a friend were attempting to install our new dishwasher (a story for another time). He didn’t know if they were recent or not, but went out and got some poison to cover all bases. He placed the poison in the garage, and the next day it was scattered around like the mouse had gotten into it, but not necessarily eaten it.

A friend told him the mouse, thinking the poison was food, was storing it for later. Which didn’t really help us now.

That night we went to bed a little later than usual and were just drifting of when Kodiak started barking. He wasn’t letting up and I didn’t want him to wake Owen, so I shuffled out of bed to quiet him. He was standing in the dining room seemingly barking at nothing, so I told him to be quiet and headed back to bed. Moments later, I heard….something.

I couldn’t exactly be sure what it was, or WHERE it was, but something was definitely in the house. As my brain went into panic mode (“What IS that? Is that what Kodiak was barking at? Did someone get in the house somehow?”) I shoved Michael to wake up. “What is that???” I hissed. We listened. Nothing.

And then…

Click, click, click, sliiiiiiide, THUMP.

Click, click, click, sliiiiiiide, THUMP.

Oh damn it, a mouse was in the house.

I grew up in a house surrounded by woods, so I’m no stranger to the odd creature causing mischief, but that doesn’t mean I want one in my house. To make matters worse, we couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. With the hardwood floors, it sounded like it was next door in the guest room running havoc, but then the next second it sounded like it was across the hall in Owen’s room (“Can mice climb cribs??”). I sent Michael out to check things out. No sign of a mouse.

But the sound continued.

Click, click, click, sliiiiiiide, THUMP, until we determined it was most likely in the wall. All I could think of was the Mouse King from The Nutcracker, whose evil-ness always scared me as a child. Despite myself, I couldn’t help humming some Tchaikovsky to myself.

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well that night.

The next day I went out and bought some traps and Michael set them up in the garage, and the following morning, the mouse was no more. But just in case he had some friends, he left the other traps set on either side of my car.

Later, I was heading to the grocery store and as I was backing out of the garage, something told me I needed to be extra careful, that if I turned my wheel only just a little, I would hit one of the traps. I’m not really sure why my brain was thinking this way, but go with it.

Despite being what I thought was super careful, apparently…I wasn’t. Because I hit the garage.

I happened to be on the phone with my mom at the time (which really didn’t contribute to it, I swear), and I as I tried to explain what just happened, my mind went blank. “I hit the….the…not the garage but the….you know, the thing around the garage…I mean…the….ugh, that damn mouse!” She laughed at my inability to form sentences as my mind went to just how pissed Michael was going to be. We just moved into the house! Way to go, Molly.

Luckily, the damage is minimal and he was able to hammer the piece back in the for time being. It’s not perfect, but it certainly doesn’t look like the above picture anymore. And I did no damage to the car, thank goodness.

But still. I blame that mouse. If it weren’t for the mouse there wouldn’t have been a trap, and if there wasn’t a trap I wouldn’t have thought I had to avoid it, and if I hadn’t tried to avoid it I wouldn’t have HIT MY HOUSE WITH MY CAR, and if I hadn’t hit my house with the car then my husband would have nothing to make fun of me for daily. (Well, that’s not true. He’d probably find something. But it wouldn’t be like, “Hit anything lately?”, which is what I hear a lot now.)

And so, I blame the mouse. I hope his little cronies saw what happened to him, because I won’t be so nice the next time around.

Click, click, click, sliiiiiiide, THUMP.

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