Monthly Archives: September 2011

Doesn’t this look like the most romantic scene? Wish it was, but it wasn’t. It was the end of a very long, stressful day, This is a slightly embarrassing post, but every time I tell this story it gets a little easier and way more funny so here goes.

Friday Morning

5:00am

Nate gets up and prepared for his classes. He lets the cats outside and leaves our sliding door slightly open so they can come in and out as they please.

6:45am

Nate wakes me up and asks for a ride to school. I oblige and stumble out of bed into my flip-flops and get him to campus before his Zero Period class starts.

7:00am

I stumble back into the house and start to get ready for my morning workout. I walk passed my bike (we keep them inside) to the bathroom until I see two beady eyes, very odd nob-like ears, whiskers and a tail on the bike. I stop immobilized and freaking the $%&* out.

“OMG. What the *#$% it that thing? A mouse? A rat?”

I quickly retreat looking for something to catch it with. I grab a box, but don’t have any idea how it’s going to help me. This rat/mouse is on the frame of my bike, not the corner of a room. I open our french doors out wide and inch the bike towards the opening hoping to get the rat/mouse to run outside.

Loki, who has been watching the rat/mouse this whole time sits there, but doesn’t do anything. The rat/mouse slowly scurries down the bike, but instead of going outside runs across the opening and into Nate’s office.

Loki follows the rat/mouse trail as I try to locate it, but I can’t find it anywhere.

“Wholly &%#%,” I think. “What the &^#$ do I do now?”

8:00am

I email Nate and tell him the situation. I tell him I am freaking out a little. Then I get ready for work, but I can barely eat my breakfast nor shower because I am so freaked out.

I try to get Pixel into the house to help out Loki, but she runs off. I leave with trepidation. Some freakish rodent is in my house and I have no idea where it is.

9:00am

I sit at my desk going over the tasks of the day, but can’t get this uneasy feeling to leave. I literally have chills up and down my back and shutter when I think of the rat/mouse.

Now I should say that I have never experienced this gut reaction to an animal before. Growing up I had pet mice, iguanas and even Madagascar cockroaches. I am usually the one that saves the spider from harm or rescues the drowning bee.  I am conflicted. I am terrified of this rodent, but I am also feeling really concerned for the rat/mouse.  I hope we can find it alive and release it away from our house regardless of how uneasy it makes me feel.

4:00pm

Nate calls. He got my frantic emails and went home right after school. He has found the rat/mouse wedged behind the bamboo plywood that leaning behind the door to his office.  He captured it in his recycling container.

He tells me he can’t kill it. He asked two construction workers working at a house down the street what they would do with it. One understood Nate’s position about not killing it, but the other -almost too quickly- said he’d take care of it for us.  Nate politely declined telling me later he just didn’t trust someone who was that interested in killing a living thing.

We decide we will release it near the river once I get home from work.

6:30pm

I arrive home. The rat/mouse sits in the recycling container with a heavy banker’s box resting on top of it in our carport. I shiver as I passed it.

We decide to drive to the river access spot near our house. Nate sits in the back seat with the recycling container as I drive.

Nate asks if I want to take a photo. I am terrified, but nod my head. I want to have record this rodent had crazy ears. I like to have proof of these things.

After the photo is taken we walk down the path to the river trail. Nate walks off the trail and takes the banker’s box off the container. The rat/mouse scurries away.

I breathe a large sigh of relief and then look at my photo. Yes, it has some crazy ears.

There is still a mystery of how the rat/mouse got into the house, but we are pretty sure Loki was involved. We decide the cats no longer get in-and-out privileges especially in the early AM. The open door policy at our home has been terminated. That way we have a little more control over what comes in the house.

I am so relieved Nate found it. I don’t know what would have happened if we didn’t.

Anyone else have slightly embarrassing story about rodents or other animals in their house? I would love to hear them. Maybe we can commiserate through our stories and slowly get through this trauma.

Are you brave? Want to see a photo of the rat/mouse? See below.

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