Of Mice and Men

We caught two mice tonight at Chez Blocher, after days and days of the humane trap being left unsprung, but stripped of its cheese.

I'm sorry to report that having been awakened by a mouse in the bedroom, John felt it necessary to set a conventional trap in there.  I went in the bedroom about a half hour after that, just in time to see a gray mousie die.  This saddens me.  Is this the mouse that repeatedly scurried past me on VIVI night, inspiring my "epic haiku?"

Half an hour after that upset, John had disposed of the dead mouse and was back in bed.  I was here in my office, tweaking my sidebar.  Yes, my sometimes-wonderful husband managed to restore modem access to my office today, by running a phone line in from outside to replace the one that the roofers probably broke or disconnected or something.  In doing so, John discovered a lot of shoddy and unfinished work on the roof:  no roof coating at all on the flat part of it, boards not flush, rotten wood left in place at the edges.  This is in addition to the fallen debris in the hall closet, and the debris and dripped tar on top of our washing machine, both of which I was prepared to overlook until now.  John is upset.  So am I.  John wanted to be able to talk to the roofers more, and make sure everything was done right.  The one time I tried to do this in John's stead, back on Halloween, none of the men on the roof was willing to admit to speaking English, much less willing to talk to the homeowner.  Now I find out that those guys didn't finish the job.  We still owe $385 or something on our $5,000+ roof.  I won't be paying that until we get some answers, at the very least.

Anyway, the computer is now back in my office instead of the kitchen.  I was in here, blogging and tweaking, when I heard some mousy scuffling in here, somewhere between me and the outside wall.  A few minutes after that, more noises came from the next room, what I call the tv room and John calls the den.  I went out and looked.  Sure enough, the humane trap was closed.  I waited a minute or so, and the box moved as the mouse tried to get out.  Is that my intrepid gray mousie?  I probably will never know, but I hope it's a gray mouse at least, so I can pretend it's my haiku hero.  We'll know when we release it tomorrow.  I feel sorry for it in the meantime, flopping around it its little box, but at least it's alive.

I wanted to bring you an uplifting ending to my mousie story, or one last exploit of cheeky Gray Mousie, caught on digital camera, of a capture and release, and all right with the world.  The dead gray mouse in the bedroom ruins the story, and makes me sad.

Whimper.

Sorry, Carly.  I tried.

Karen