We had a problem. Actually, it was several problems, but I just don’t know how many. The problem was spelled “M-O-U-S-E”.
It all started when I had some zip-lock bags of Friendship Bread batter on my kitchen counter. You’re supposed to let this stuff sit for a couple of weeks, then you cook it. Well, after a couple of days, the bags started leaking at the corners. I thought I had defective bags.
So I rebagged them, and it happened again. My son said, “Mom, it’s not the bags. Look … we’ve got a mouse.” He showed me the teeth marks on the bag.
For a long time I was in denial. I mean, I’m not the kind of person who could possibly have mice in her house. It’s also not the kind of problem you ask your friends about. “Hey, how do you catch mice at your house?” It’s like admitting something terrible. Talking about mice is TABOO.
But I soon discovered that, although they talked about it under their breath, most people have had some sort of run in with the little critters. Some said DON’T use poison … they’ll die in your walls. Some advised you HAVE to use poison or you’ll never get rid of them. One said if I had one mouse, I probably had a whole family, probably 12. Eek!
I panicked. I bought a dozen glue traps, mostly because I have dogs and I didn’t want to kill them, too. But I hid them in the bottom of my grocery cart because I didn’t want anyone to know we had, well, you know, that thing we were talking about which I don’t want to admit to.
So, like I was saying in last week’s column, my husband and I flew to Belgium and left my mother here to watch after the kids (and dogs). I left money for emergencies. Can you see it coming?
The first morning, she walked into our laundry room and Boudreaux, our toy poodle, was stuck to a glue trap, or rather the glue trap was stuck to him. He had obviously wrestled with it for some time, because all four feet had glue on them, and he was stuck to the floor.
A beach towel had also become involved in the fight … it was all balled up and stuck to one side … my son’s shirt was stuck to the other side, and my daughter’s medical report, all filled out for athletics, was draping off his rear end.
As you can imagine, the sight threw my mother into hysterics. After she calmed down, she slowly plucked his feet off the floor and all the stuff off him. She read the fine print on the glue trap box about how to get the sticky stuff off.
She ran to Walmart to get some mineral spirits (a little of the emergency money), but by the time she got home, Boudreaux had run around the house, leaving little sticky pawprints everywhere.
An hour later, after scrubbing down Boudreaux and the floors, she threw all the sticky towels into the washing machine. Minutes later, the laundry room was filled with smoke.
She tracked down one of my friends, who gave her the name of a repairman, who came to the house, who looked at the washing machine, who shook his head, who looked at her with pity, who gave her the bad news.
“Mice have chewed through the wires here. I can fix it, lady, but it’ll happen again if you don’t get rid of the mice. And you’ll never get rid of them with glue traps.”
My mom told him to fix it (a lot of the emergency money). Then she declared war and bought a bunch of poison (the rest of the emergency money).
The emergency fund was depleted, and she was still on Day One.
She said next time we left town, she would not be available.
But, hey, I don’t think we have any more of the, you know, little gray, um, problems.
