Late Night Rodent Tails

I was riding my trainer in the computer room tonight, when I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. At first I wrote it off to flicker from the bombardment in Band of Brothers - but the more I thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed. When the mouse came around the end of the computer hutch and blatantly stared me down before scurrying back under cover, my suspicions were confirmed. I finished my ride, and then called for Pooteewheet to bring me a shoe or some other heavy mouse-stunning object.

She complied, and we discussed the shoe for a while before she brought me around to her way of thinking (she's still traumatized by my hair brushing of a vole at the duplex many years ago)...Eryn's puke bucket. Eryn was ill today, so I had the satisfaction of knowing the mouse was going to be trapped in a used puke bucket - then again, maybe they think that's delicious. I put various found objects in front of all the cracks and crevices leading out of the room and Pooteewheet staffed the broom while I staffed the bucket. We chased the mouse back and forth and back and forth trying to corner it somewhere that wasn't full of wires (wireless is for whipper snappers), until it finally ran under the second computer desk and promptly vanished. Fearing that the mouse had made it into the closet somehow, I slowly pulled everything out until it was spotless. Net result - no mouse.

Then I realized that the old Windows 98 machine was slightly askew...sure enough, there he was, moseying around under the lower card. Unwilling to slam a bucket against the machine, I shooed him out and we resumed the chase.



Several minutes later...he was our prisoner. Unfortunately for him, his tail was stuck between the cardboard and the puke bucket, but he probably found it preferable to a shoeing. Note that I did not pin his tail under the lip of the bucket merely to enhance blog excitement, though I did take advantage of the situation.



After that I took him outside and backed over him with the car. No no...I didn't, I didn't. Only a psychotic backs over a mouse with a car. We took him out back...way out back, and let him lose in some leaves not too far from the neighbor's wood pile. I might feel bad about inflicting a mouse on my neighbor if it weren't for the fact that the woodpile has been there for years - it's probably where the mouse came from in the first place. Anyway - here's proof we set him free...because we love him. And if returns, he's ours forever. I'm not sweating from chasing a mouse, by the way - that's from riding for 45 minutes.



As an added bonus - here's a close up of the mouse in flight, giving each and every one of you a mousey moon. Note the crimp in his tail where it was under the edge of the bucket. Don't pity him, it's a battle scar he'll carry proudly to show the other mice his brush with death.