The Mouse In Our House

The Space Age Housewife still seems, in the aftermath of the hurricane disaster, to be a shallow exercise in self-absorption. I'm not sure when I'll be able to resume my sometimes serious, sometimes self-deprecating little glimpses into the workings of my feeble suburban brain.

Still and all, I want to write. Until such time as the Space Age Housewife regains her sense of self, I'm going to post here some of my previous writings in the hopes that someone will enjoy them.

This little vignette was written in February of 2004:


THE MOUSE IN OUR HOUSE

“Noooooooooooooooo! Ew! Ew! Ew! MOM!”

The alarmed screams bring me flying from my office chair to the kitchen, where I come screeching to a halt at the sight of my teenage daughter standing atop a stool near the refrigerator. Behind her, the cheerful local news anchor delivering her story on my portable kitchen television seems incongruous and almost funny.

“What on earth…?” I ask, puzzled by my daughter’s apparent fright.

“It’s…a…MOUSE!” she shrieks in answer, gasping for breath between words.

“A mouse? Are you sure? Maybe you just saw a shadow. Or some dust. Or something.” I step into the kitchen and cautiously peer under the cabinets and the refrigerator.

“No. It’s a mouse! It’s under the stove!”

Trying to instill in my daughter a sense of confidence I do not feel myself, I sidle up to the stove and gingerly kick at it with one foot. Nothing. Feeling braver, I bend down to have a peek under there myself. I am sure my daughter imagined the whole thing. There is no mouse here! Vermin? Disturb the purity of my kitchen? No way. Suddenly, as if to challenge my faulty perception, something scurries past me from the stove and shoots underneath the dishwasher, behind the base of the cabinets. Squealing in disgust, I leap away from the stove and jump on top of the other stool.

“I told you!” my daughter cries in a voice still high-pitched with nervousness. “I told you it was a mouse! Do something!”

Do something? Like what? A preliminary run-through of my options brings me right back to what I an actually doing: perching on a stool with my heart pounding at an abnormally high speed. A glance at the clock tells me it will be at least an hour before my husband will be home.

“Er…what do you want me to do?” I ask.

“I don’t know! You’re the mom here!”

“Yes. Yes I am,” I agree. “And my relationship with mice and their ilk is somewhat marginal. They offend me, I offend them, and therefore we try to stay away from each other. Do you think it’s still under the dishwasher?”

“I didn’t see it come out. It’s just waiting down there to get me!”

At that, my four-year-old wanders into the kitchen.

“Hi, Mom,” she says curiously. “What are you doing on the stool?”

“Um, nothing, honey. Nothing. Go play in the living room. Watch Sponge Bob.”

“I heard it!” my older daughter screeches, nearing hysteria. “It was making a scratching noise!”

“What?” my younger daughter asks again. “What is it?”

“It’s a mouse,” the older one blurts before I can stop her with a frown and a warning shake of my head.

“A MOUSE?” the littler one yells. “Is it a BIG mouse?”

Just then the phone rings. I lean way over from my spot high above the floor and tip the receiver off the hook, dragging it nearer to me by the cord. When I am able to reach it firmly in my hands, I put it up to my ear.

“Hello?” I say, my own voice tinged with the same high pitch as that of my older daughter.

“Hi. What’s going on?” It’s my husband.

“We have a mouse!” I cry into the phone. “Can you come home?”

“What do you mean, we have a mouse?” he asks. What does he mean, what do I mean? What does it sound like I mean? A mouse, man, a MOUSE! In my house!

“I mean, we have a mouse.”

“Where is it now?”

“It ran under the cabinets. Behind the dishwasher.”

“Oh. Well there’s access to the subfloor there. It’s probably outside under the deck by now. Unless it has a nest in the subfloor.”

“A n-n-n-est?” I croak. “Under…my…floor…?”

“For crying out loud, honey. It’s not going to hurt you. I’ll take care of it when I get home. I just called to let you know I have a late appointment.”

“How late?”

“I don’t know. Another hour or two.”

“We’re on top of stools.”

“What?”

“We’re standing on stools. How long do you think we can do this?”

Without giving him a chance to mull that over, I continue in a rush.

“You have to come home. I can’t put my feet on the floor if a mouse is going to run over them.”

Behind me, I hear a medley of voices as both of my daughters cry out at once:

“Mother! At least you have shoes on!”

“Daddy! There’s a mouse in the house and it’s going to come out AND EAT KAYLA’S FACE!”

“Listen,” my husband goes on. “If you can’t wait for me to get home, call an exterminator. There’s a voucher in the phone book for a free consultation.”

“I don’t want a consultation,” I answer sourly. “I want the mouse gone.”

“I’ll bring some d-Con home with me.”

“What if it goes into the subfloor and dies down there? Won’t it stink up the house?”

It is obvious my husband’s patience is wearing thin.

“Honey, I have to go. I’ll take care of it when I get home. You do not have to stand on stools. It isn’t going to hurt you! It is probably hiding from you.”

He hangs up before I can make any additional protest.

“Well, Mom? What are you going to do?” My daughter, half-standing and half-sitting on her stool, changes the television station from local news to “Jeopardy!”

“Mommy?” my younger daughter asks from her newly acquired seat on top of the dining table. “Is the mouse going to eat us?”

“No, silly, no, no. Mice don’t eat people. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Nothing. Right?

“Then why are you standing on the stool?”

She has me. I’m stumped. If I want her to believe me, and if I don't want her to be terrified of mice and traumatized forever, I am going to have to get down.

Cautiously, I step one toe onto the floor, then slowly ease myself off the stool until I am standing on my own two feet. So far so good.

“There it goes!” shouts my older daughter. “There it goes!”

I turn just in time to see the mouse duck under the door to my pantry.

“All right, that’s it!” I say, snatching my preschooler off the dining table and bounding into the living room to retrieve my young son from his spot in front of Teletubbies.

“Jump!” I holler back at my teenager as I hurriedly pull coats out of the hall closet.

Just in case that mouse does turn out to be of the face-eating variety, I am taking no chances.

We’re going out to supper.