Of Mice and Men

I want a dog. Really really bad.

I think...

I always swore that as soon as I had my own yard, I'd get a dog. And I even said on more than one occasion that if my husband was allergic to dogs, he wouldn't be husband anymore. Thankfully, Jared isn't allergic to dogs. So what's my holdup?? Well....ummmm....I kind of have commitment issues (hence the whole not-getting-married-until-I'm-30 thing). And I'm kind of a clean freak.

Ranch dogs are not clean. They play with grasshoppers for fun. And skunks. And they chew on random deer parts. And eat cow placentas. It's disgusting. I'm used to clean city dogs. Ones that you keep in the house and throw in the bathtub every week or two. I do have to say, though, that ranch dogs are

very happy dogs. And very cool dogs, too :)

Jared's mom got a new little puppy about a month ago. Meet Sadie:

She's so stinking adorable I can hardly stand to look at her. She's also the reason I'm back on the I-want-a-dog-really-really-bad thing. Can you blame me??

I'm not giving in to her puppy charm, though. Not yet. For now, I'm going to enjoy the house pets we already have. Like this little frog that we found in the basement the other day.

And the mice. Yes, that's right. The mice.

Ok, so maybe the mice don't really count since they aren't around anymore. Special thanks to expandable foam and a sweet little contraption called: the Rat Zapper. I think we first started noticing signs of our house guests about a week after we moved in. The final confirmation was when I noticed jolly ranchers all over the counter one morning, a chewed-on ziplock bag (that contained some bread), and some very holy plums that we'd left out the night before. Stupid mice.

A few nights later, I went to bed before Jared because he had some programming to finish up. I'd been asleep for maybe 45 minutes when I woke up to the sound of my airsoft guns. I wondered what in the heck Jared was doing shooting my guns in the middle of the night. I gave it about 30 seconds worth of deep and annoyed thought before falling back to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I'd completely forgotten about the midnight shootings. Until I walked in the kitchen and saw this:

I asked Jared what he'd been shooting at. He excitedly told me that as he was working the night before, a little mouse ran under the coffee table in front of him. Instead of screaming and curling up in the fetal position like any normal and completely reasonable human would do, he grabbed the airsoft guns and started shooting.

Brilliant.

A night or two went by before there was another sighting. I had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Before I walked through the kitchen, I turned on the light to scan for any little critters. The coast was clear so I proceeded. Then I heard a soft metal clanking sound. I froze and scanned the counter again. That's when I saw him. Mr. Mouse sitting on top of our dang toaster. YUCK! I was too scared...errrr...uhhhh...tired to do anything about it, so I pretended he wasn't there and continued on to the bathroom. When I walked back through the kitchen, he was gone. Creepy.

You'd think after that sighting we'd set traps and fill the holes in the walls. Ya, ummm..... it kind of took us awhile to get around to that.

A few nights after that, Jared and I were watching a movie in the living room when I noticed something moving on the floor in front of us. Another mouse. We watched him for a few seconds and then he ran under the piano and never came back out. Another hole. Jared went and grabbed the airsoft guns and we loaded up. We each had a gun and took position on the arm of the couch.

Then we waited.

Best. Date night. Ever.

We had a blast shooting at that thing!! Unfortunately we never hit it, but we sure had fun trying. And we repeated the activity a few nights later. Jared was a lot more daring than I was. I took advantage of the safety of the couch. Jared on the other hand....

You can't see it from the angle of this pic, but he's got his arms out in front of him with his gun in hand...

I'm pleased to report that the above pic was taken on the last night of our airsoft vs. mouse fun. We ended up filling all of our holes and borrowing a Rat Zapper the next day from Jared's brothers. We caught our first and last mouse that first night. We'd just gone to bed when I heard a short buzz and then saw red flashing in the living room. Success! I excitedly told Jared that we'd caught our first mouse. I then told him that he had to take care of it since he was a guy...and since I was afraid that it was still alive and would jump out and attack me.

Jared was a good husband and got out of bed to take care of the mouse. He shook the zapper a bit to shock the little guy one more time and then took it outside. I love having a guy around for that kind of stuff!

The next morning I got up early for my weekly "walk-and-talk" with Heidi. I walked out the front door and was greeted by this:

Notice anything wrong with this picture? Look down the center of the walkway... See the little lump a few feet from the bottom step? In case your eyesight isn't what it used to be, let me zoom in a bit.

Sorry if that pic was a bit too graphic. It wasn't a very welcome sight for me, either. I immediately texted Jared and asked him if that was really the best place he could think of to dispose of the mouse. He didn't respond.

In his defense, though, he meant to move the little guy before I saw him. And he did end up tossing it out in the field across the driveway.

Two days later.