The mouse ran across my feet, stopped to sniff the air, then looked me dead in the eye. I stared back. The game was on.
It was midnight. I could hear the bugs hit the window of my bedroom as I tried not to move. I had been caught with my pants down, literally.
The mouse, well, he wears no pants. I continued to sit in my underwear. He continued to stare.
The clocked ticked, ticked, ticked slowly.
I leapt at him, two-hundred and fifty pounds of naked man meat coming for him. The mouse darted and ran. Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done if I caught him with my bare hands. The only thing going through my head was that my wife was sleeping in our bed fifteen feet from us. Should she wake and see this mouse in our bedroom, we are going to have to move. I missed and the mouse ran under my desk.
My first action should have been to put some pants on, or at least my big boots. Instead, I jiggled in place and slapped myself all over my body. This is a mouse/bug hunting ritual. It’s usually followed by “eww, oh God, oh God, eww!”
It is expected.
Like an idiot, I put my face on the floor to see exactly where the mouse was under my desk. He ran at my face. I flailed and knocked over my office chair. The mouse went back under my desk.
Still, I did not put pants on. I was beyond pants. There was an instinct that had taken over my body. Caveman intellect oozed into my brain. I could only hunt now. My breathing had become guttural. There was a smell of wet jungle in the air.
The mouse had lived in our house for at least two days. It was my wife who discovered the harbinger of grossness. Her scream still echos in my hallway. That same day, I went to the store and got several traps and baited them with peanut butter, the nectar of field mice. But over the next twenty-four hours, the traps had remained empty. And now my foe was upstairs in my very own room.
I retrieved the traps and placed them all around the desk. The smell of peanut butter death lingered in the air. I sat on a footstool and waited. And waited. And waited.
The mouse came out and sniffed. He went to one of the traps. This was it. I would be victorious. He kicked the trap with his back foot. I swear to you, he kicked the trap! I dived at him again.
We continued to play this game. This battle of the wits. I was losing.
For another thirty minutes, I sat and watched. I repositioned the traps again and again. Nothing.
Eventually, I convinced myself that I had been outsmarted. I sat down on my chair and closed my eyes, preparing tomorrow’s attack. The mouse had clearly gone back downstairs to enjoy his victory.
Behind me, I heard scratching. Slowly, I opened my eyes. Two inches from my face, the mouse hung from the curtains. He squeaked. I screamed.
Round two had begun.
I got one of my children’s’ plastic buckets and a large knife I keep in my closet. It belonged to my grandfather; a man that had hunted much more than I had. I knew it was sharp. My plan was to catch the mouse in the bucket and then to stab wildly in a bestial display of manhood.
I can admit now, it was not a well thought out plan.
The mouse jumped on my chair, the sacred one that none shall sit in other than dad. He took a bite out of the dad sweater that hung on the back. He mocked me.
I brought the bucket down. The mouse tried to jump but it was too late. I had got him! However, the bucket was over my cushions which allowed him an avenue of escape. So close, yet so far away.
I tore my little home office apart. I moved my dad chair, turned over the footstool, and pushed aside the knick-knacks. I blocked off any path to my wife.
“What’s going on?” my wife asked from her slumber.
“Aliens. All is well. Go back to sleep.” I replied.
“Ok.”
My seven-year-old son came into the room. “What’s all that noise?”
“Go to bed!”
My other son came into the room. “What’s all that noise?”
“Go to bed!”
Then I got my dog. He is eighty-five pounds mutt fierceness. He eats wasps on the back porch like they are popcorn. He threatens to crash through the windows daily. My dog. This is his function. All the belly rubs and couch snuggles for this one moment. I brought him over to the kill zone.
I used a broom handle to push the mouse out from under the desk. The little guy was tired. He ran to the curtains again and stopped.
“There! There he is, Dobby!” I said to the dog.
My dog did not move.
“Get the mouse, boy! Get the mouse!”
“Yeah, I’m not going to do that,” my dog’s eyes said.
“But the mouse is right there!” I replied.
“Yup. That’s a mouse. There he is. I’m out.” The dog started to walk away. I grabbed him by the harness and lead him back.
“Get the mouse!” I again commanded.
“Nope.”
“Please?”
“I’m tired.”
“I’ll get you bacon.”
“Nah fam, I’m good.”
Then my dog walked away again. The mouse bolted, this time headed for the bathroom. For the next twenty minutes, I constructed a mouse barricade. The mouse had made a tactical mistake. There was nowhere to hide in the bathroom and after my filing cabinet and book barricade was complete, the mouse was helpless. I approached him and gently laid the bucket over the mouse.
He was mine.
“What’s going on?” my fourteen-year-old daughter asked from the doorway.
“I’ve got the mouse!”
“What!?”
“The mouse!”
She immediately jumped on the counter. After putting a weight on the bucket, I went to get my knife.
“Dad!” my daughter said. “Put him back in the field!”
Ugh. Daughters. Am I right?
I got a piece of cardboard and gently put it over the lid of the bucket.
“Get the door! Get the Door! Get the front door!” I commanded my daughter as we ran.
The dog jumped on the couch and went to sleep. I ran out into the street with my prize. My daughter followed me. It was 1 a.m. Two blocks down, near the field, I placed the bucket on the ground. With the broom, I turned it over and released the mouse.
The mouse immediately headed in the direction of my house. In what can only be described as the most perfect golf swing ever, I caught the mouse full-on and sent it flying like a fine shot from my three-iron. As the mouse sailed through the air, I relived our adventure together.
Not today, mouse. Today is my day.
“Dad,” my daughter said, tears of laughter shining in her eyes.
“Yes, my sweet girl! What praise do you wish to lavish your hero father with?”
“You’re still in your underwear and there is a car coming.”
Crap.
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