Of Mice and Men

We had a mouse. His name was Gerald. Gerald was very fond of eating all the packet food in our pantry. I didn't know that mice could climb shelves but Gerald could. He liked noodles, Arrowroot biscuits, cashews, anything he could get his grubby little mits on.

And he liked pooping. In wardrobes, under the lounge and, of course, in the pantry. Finally I pushed aside my animal-loving instincts and said "Enough!" (with a strange German accent) and sent The Captain out to buy a mouse trap.

With the sweet allure of an Arrowroot biscuit Gerald was caught within a week. Head snapped just after 9 in the morning. After a frantic call to both The Captain and my sister (neither of whom could actually do anything about said-dead-rodent) I had to pretend to ignore it all day until The Captain got home from work because there was no way in hell that I was going to touch that thing.

Anyway, Gerald was disposed of that afternoon. End of story.

Or so we thought. Apparently mice like to hunt in pairs.

A day after Gerald was taken to the great big Cheese House in the sky I started to notice an odd smell in the vicinity of our fridge. I pointed it out to The Captain who claimed to smell nothing. Pushing it aside I got on with things. Like going to work.

The days I was home, however, the smell got worse. And became a whiff. The whiff became a pong. And the pong became a stink. And the stink....Anyway...It got bad.

Finally on Saturday night I made The Protesting Captain move the fridge out in case a mouse had gotten caught underneath it and died. There were some wicked dust balls, but no Sue (that's what I had named the stink. I was sure it was a dead mouse.) Feeling vindicated The Captain moved the fridge back. But the stink had been awoken. And boy did it reek. The Olfactory-Challenged Captain still claimed to smell nothing but my three year old son adamantly backed me up.

After an intense argument with shouting and finger shaking The No-Match-For-Stubborn-Me Captain moved the fridge again. I had heard that mice could squeeze in behind the back of the fridge and get stuck in there and die.

The Heavily-Swearing-And-Disbelieving Captain reluctantly got a torch and began to search in the back of the fridge, behind the back panel.

"Oh," he said rather surprised. "There's a dead mouse in here. You were right dear."

One very sheepish Captain and one very pleased (although I have to say it's not the kind of thing one wants to be right about) Mama went to bed happy that night. One very curious three year old, however, still wonders every night what happened to Gerald and his loving partner Sue.

I am just hoping that Gerald and Sue didn't get too intimate before they left us for the micey afterlife.