A Gruesome Scene

Okay, so this one borders on the uncouth, in that I would normally never admit to having such a problem, but too much has gone on in the past few days to not recount it for posterity on this here blog.

A few nights ago, I was up late working on my Bible Study at the kitchen table when I saw out of my peripheral vision a tiny little something whiz past the glass sliding door of our little country house in the city.

A house that is a mere 5 minutes from WalMart, mind you.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. "No...NO!

I looked again. "Oh, no...it is!"

It was a mouse. Ewww!

I like country living for the most part...but this I did not sign on for.

About a half hour later, I saw it scamper past again, directly to Raisin's dog food bowl, and in a split second, even faster that the infernal birds that help themselves so greedily to her food, that mouse had jumped in, grabbed a piece of food and jumped back out.

It was so fast I wondered if I was just seeing things, having felt that creepy-crawly, high-alert way that one feels when they realize the relative peace of one's backyard has been invaded by vermin.

In the morning, I told Jeff, who was equally appalled.

After searching around, we found a little stockpile of food beneath a shelf set up temporarily on the back porch to hold various camper renovation items.

Then a horrible thought came to me. Oh, no...the camper!!

Could this critter and it's kin have set up housekeeping in our beloved camper? Horror of horrors!

I've read about the Hante virus. And we certainly don't need that!

We need mousetraps, stat!

So, Jeff went off in search of some. Which he did in stores far from our home, lest he be seen by anyone we knew.

Unfortunately, in the city, folks apparently don't believe in the quick and humane methods of mouse extermination (traps), and seem to prefer these plastic trays with a super-sticky gel substance on it wherein the critter gets hopelessly stuck to the trap and eventually starves to death. Or smothers, if their little nose happens to contact the substance.

Seeing the mouse brazenly come up at dusk last night, we put the trap out beneath the shelf where we'd found a stockpile of dog food.

This morning, Jericho comes in from feeding the dog to inform us, "I kid you not...there's a mouse on that trap."

There was an air of excitement in his voice...having never experienced such a thing before.

Or maybe it was morbid fascination.

Judah, too, rushed to inspect. Squatting down, poking at it with a stick.

I went out in my bathrobe, bleary-eyed, to see for myself, hoping beyond hope the poor thing was dead so it wouldn't be incumbent upon us to have to put it out of it's misery.

But in the few moments in which Jericho had come in to tell us, and when I finally got outside, it was gone...trap and all! Jericho looked around in disbelief.

We hadn't counted on the dog wanting in on a piece of the action.

I glanced over to the most obvious place...nearest her house, and there was the crumpled up remains of the trap, mouse still attached, albeit wet and mangled from the wild roller-coaster ride inflicted by our jowly dog.

I was just thankful that super-sticky trap wasn't stuck to Raisin's snout.

When she heard her us using her name in an implicating manner, she stood to the side all innocently as if to say, "What? I didn't do anything!", but guilt was etched on every wrinkle of her Shar-Pei face.

When I got over to the trap, poor little critter's ears twitched, it's beady little eyes looking up at me.

Horrors! It was still alive!

Jeff was getting ready for work, so I asked Jericho to use the pitchfork to put it back under the shelf where the dog wouldn't mess with it.

Which he did.

Followed by several shouts of, "BAD GIRL!" because Raisin had followed, and was digging under the shelf with her paw, trying to get it back out again because all of this was very exciting stuff to the poor city-dwelling canine.

Jeff came to the glass sliding door having heard the goings-on, and casually mentions, "We'll need to hit it over the head with a shovel to kill it."

"We'll?" Oh, ho ho...not me! (I distinctly remembered having mentioned traps, because I wanted it to quickly dispatch the critter). I could barely bring myself to look at the poor, hopelessly stuck critter, let alone do it in.

Well, as it turns out, Raisin, bad girl that she is, saved the day.

She managed to dig it back out once again, and her jowly mauling apparently did the trick.

We think the poor thing died of a heart attack.

Now, let's just hope there is not a little nest with pink jellybeans to be found in the camper!

As Judah and I were leaving for Bible Study later that morning, I glanced out the backyard and was horrified to see that Raisin had managed to ferret out the other trap from beneath the camper, and had it stuck to her front paw.

She was doing this little step-step-shake the paw motion (much like a cat will do if you stick tape to the bottom of it's paws, not that we've ever done that), looking terribly guilty.

I managed to step on the exposed corner of the trap just as she snatched her paw back...with half the crumpled plastic still securely stuck there.

Raisin, of course, thought all of this was great fun and that I had come out to play with her, and raced around so that I couldn't get her. If I didn't get going, I was going to be late.

When we arrived home later, she greeted us at the fence, having managed to get the remainder of the trap off without incident.

The fun just never ends, haha.