The Intruder

On Sunday night at about 1:30am (well, technically Monday morning) I heard a big thump. It sounded like it was coming from the front porch or on the roof of the front porch, which is right outside our bedroom windows. I panicked and told Dave, "Someone is out there! And, oh no, what if someone is breaking in?" Because my mind typically goes to the worst possible scenario imaginable, things were not looking good. Dave jumped out of bed and ran downstairs without a gun or a broom or anything (we don't have a gun, and the broom is downstairs, he could have at least gotten Lucy's stick horse!). I was fearing for his life. He turned on the flood lights and came back upstairs. I was so grateful no one got him and he made it back up safely. He said he didn't see anyone and things looked calm outside. He got back in bed and then we heard a thump, thump, thump come from the laundry room (really it's just a washer/dryer closet). Our bedroom shares a wall with the laundry room, so we could hear everything loud and clear. At that point, I thought for sure someone broke into the house through the second floor window and got in the laundry room. I was terrified. Dave was much more calm through the whole thing. He went and looked, again, with nothing but his hands to defend himself. He turned the light on and looked under the door and heard the pitter-patter of a small animal. He saw fur and surmised that it was a mouse. I couldn't imagine that we would have a mouse, we live in the woods and mice live in fields, but okay, it was small, furry, and had four little legs. Then all I could think about were the mice we had on the farm growing up. I pictured the one mouse I saw running across my room when I was 10. And then the smell of the dead mice in the radiators came flashing back. The dead-mouse-in-the-radiator smell was somewhat comforting, because we at least knew that the little guy was dead and wouldn't crawl on us while we were sleeping.

Anyway, Dave got dressed and decided to go to Harris Teeter and get a mouse trap at 1:45 in the morning. I love that! He had so much presence of mind while he was mouse trap shopping. It was very impressive. He got the spring-loaded kind where the mouse crawls in the hole to get the bait and then it twists the mouse around. There's no poison or nasty mouse mess to clean up. It also seemed somewhat Gus-proof. He jammed the bait part full of peanut butter and cheese. The direction suggested one or the other, so we opted for both. When Dave put the trap in the laundry room, he saw the fur and an eye of the mouse.

On Monday morning, the trap still had not gone off. Arghhh. I kept all the doors shut upstairs, just in case the little guy wanted to get out and explore. When I was putting Lucy down for her nap I explained to her that I had to shut the door all the way, that she wasn't in trouble, there was just a pest roaming around, and I didn't want it to come in her room while she was sleeping. She said, "Is the pest Gus, Mommy?" I told her it was not Gus this time, but a rodent. We never call Gus a pest, but clearly she understood the meaning of the word. She was okay with that. I heard the critter Monday afternoon in the laundry room. It was somewhat comforting that he was still in there, but maddening that he hadn't been lured in by the peanut butter and the cheese. Dave heard him Monday night and went out and got some poison. We decided not to use it, though, mainly because what if the mouse died and wandered into the hall and Gus and Lucy found it and thought it was a pet. All I could think about was Dumb and Dumber and the blind kid having a dead bird as his pet. That would be bad.

We had two loads of clean laundry sitting on top of the dryer before this happened. The laundry was mounting, and I really needed to get to it. At 12:30am Tuesday morning Gus got up for the fourth time, so we were up with him. I asked Dave if he could at least restart the washer (there were clothes in it), so we could get back on track with the laundry. This time he took a plastic tupperware container with him. If he saw the mouse, then he could trap him. I was on our bed with Gus and we heard Dave open the door. A few seconds later Dave let out a little yelp or scream. I started laughing hysterically. And then Dave says, "It's a squirrel, NOT a mouse!" Then Dave says, "He's so cute. Hey there little buddy. Aren't you cute?" I guess Dave looked down by the dryer and when he looked up the squirrel was in the laundry basket full of clothes staring at him. I would have screamed so much louder! So Dave put the tupperware container on top of him and carried the laundry basket of clothes downstairs and out the front door, all the while singing the Wonder Pets theme song. Where's the camera when you need it? We got a pretty good look at the critter. Turns out he was a flying squirrel! He had webbing/wings from his shoulders to his feet. Dave took the basket out on the front walk and let the squirrel go free. He bounded out of there! Then Dave emptied the laundry basket on the front porch to make sure the squirrel's friends weren't hanging out in there, too. We just found squirrel urine on the bottom of the basket! Yuck! The washer, dryer, floor, and walls had little puddles of urine. Dave didn't really believe that the squirrel pottied everywhere, but when he sprayed it with Lysol, it turned green and smelled very squirrely (according to Dave, I was no where near this when he cleaned it up!). It certainly was not funny in the moment, but since everything ended well, we can laugh about it now!