And Another New Thing

Remember a few posts back when I mentioned that I have to check out whatever my daughter is trying to show me, just in case it's something that needs to be dispatched?

About a half hour ago, she wanted to show me her "cute". This is her "cute" in the bathroom, under a glass bowl:



I did not freak out, no screaming or standing on chairs or anything like that (I reserve that maneuver for huge spiders that have enough hair to be spokesmodels for a shampoo company). I mean, it's a mouse. It has fur, adorable little ears, and was actually pretty cute (K was right on that one). But it most assuredly did not belong in my house, where it could wreak havoc in my pantry.

The mouse was remarkably calm, too. It was completely unfazed by K's curiosity, in that she kept getting down on eye-level with it to look at it. I first saw it in the hallway, and it very calmly ambled into our bathroom, where I put a glass bowl over it. It never did run away from us, it just kind of accepted us and unconcernedly moved on. Even under the glass, it didn't really freak out, although it did start shaking a little bit once it figured out it had some boundaries under the bowl. Then I had to figure out what in the heck I was going to do with it; I don't think that a mouse under glass would be the best decorative accessory for an ocean-themed bathroom.

After a few minutes of forcibly keeping my daughter from removing the glass bowl that was safely containing the fuzzy little vermin, I called my mother to see if she had any ideas on how to humanely and safely dispose of it without my having to actually dispatch the thing myself. I didn't want to just let it go, because I have a feeling it will be back, but I just am squeamish about dispatching anything other than bugs and spiders with a shoe, which is the weapon of choice around here. She suggested letting it loose in my neighbor's yard, where at least 5 adult cats and multiple kittens live.

Then I called my husband, not because he could do anything about it but because I figured he'd like to know that we apparently have a way for mice to get into the house. He wanted me to kill it, but I just couldn't. So then he suggested taking it to the back of the property and letting it go in the woods. That, I could handle.

So I took my daughter out of the bathroom, where she was still cooing over the mouse (and still trying to take the bowl off of it), shut the bathroom door, and threatened her butt with a spanking if she opened it again. I went upstairs to snag a cardboard frozen pizza insert that I'd earmarked for another project, went back down to the bathroom, slowly shoved it under the bowl (being careful not to damage the little toes or the tail), and walked outside to the backyard. I actually went behind our back fence and let him out at the edge of the woods.

He still wasn't frightened of me, after all that! I set the bowl and cardboard down, and removed the bowl. He just sat up and looked at me, and twitched his whiskers. Weird. I actually had to dump him off of the cardboard and shoo him into the woods, he started to follow me. Even weirder.

So, this is a first for me, at least in this house. I have lived in other older houses that had an occasional mouse, so it's no biggie. But I'd just commented the other day on how great it was that, even though we live out in the country, I had yet to see a mouse in our house. I guess that'll teach me!