[crouton] Nathaniel Trost: S-U-N-D-A-Y Emmm-oh-you-essss-eee

[crouton at lists.powerblogs.com]

Posted by Nathaniel Trost:
S-U-N-D-A-Y Emmm-oh-you-essss-eee
http://crouton.powerblogs.com/archives/archive_2005_10_23-2005_10_29.shtml#=
1130274329


   The weekend was almost entirely uneventful. This was not a bad thing.
   The sole deviation from the tranquil norm came Sunday morning as I
   hauled myself out of bed to lurch in the general direction of the
   shower. As I entered the bathroom and turned to flip on the lights, my
   peripheral vision registered=E2=A6something. That something was a small
   dark object that appeared to zip in a fraction of a second under the
   hallway closet door which was directly across from the bathroom.
   "Yipes, what the hell?" was the instinctual first thought of the
   brain. Second thought was, did I really just see that, or am I just
   not awake yet? I was pretty sure I saw something, and that something
   was too darn big for a cockroach. Or at least I hoped as much! This
   place has been extremely pest free over the couple years I have lived
   here.
   Several minutes later, I had established a blocking perimeter in the
   hallway with various boxes, the odd laundry hamper, etc. and was ready
   to brave the closet. Open. Peek. Nothing. Poke boxes. Dead silence.
   Being a bit more methodical I eventually managed to flush the quarry:
   a teensy brown mouse. He did manage to wriggle under the bathroom door
   and triggered the second round of the chase. Fortunately, there were
   really only two things to hide behind in the bathroom: a trash can and
   the toilet brush holder. We went a couple rounds: me flushing him, him
   racing for the bathroom door, running into the boxes I had set up, but
   running back into the bathroom before I could move over to try and
   lift up the box with him inside.
   He broke the stalemate by escaping past the boxes and attempting to
   enter the living room by wriggling through a barrier composed of a
   giant package of paper towels. This proved to be a poor choice for a
   barrier as I was unable to goad Mr. Mouse back into the hallway, he
   managed to wriggle through and escape to a pile of boxes in the corner
   of the living room.
   From there, I kept a sharp watch on that corner and began constructing
   a highway hemmed by boxes heading from that corner to the front door.
   No, I did not designate it the M1. I opened the front door and for
   good measure laid down a laundry hamper as an additional obstacle to
   try and channel the critter back out into nature.
   Sure enough, the furious scampering ensued as planned, down the path
   and while not out the door, into the hamper. This was actually ideal
   in my thinking as I could cart my little friend a fair distance away
   before releasing him. However, he had other ideas and managed to
   wriggle through the venting in the side of the hamper and dove into a
   pile of loose carpet. Ten points to the mouse for quick action under
   fire.
   After some rearranging of the barricades I gave it one last try and
   yanked up the loose carpet. Apparently having had enough, the mouse
   exited the way he must have entered: through a doggy door retrofitted
   into the patio entrance used by the previous tenants Chihuahua. As
   tempting as it was to re-enact the welding scene from "Aliens", I
   instead implemented a kludge involving a very small plastic cutting
   board and some heavy books.
   Hopefully that will be the last of my mouse adventures. As I said, the
   place has been pretty much pest-free for the last couple years and I
   want it to stay that way. Especially since there is always a certain
   amount of seed and/or pellets floating around due to the birds. It's
   times like this when a cat is a really appealing creature to have
   around. Of course, a cat aggressive enough to take care of any rodents
   might also have issues with the birds. While this could be countered
   by adding an even bigger bird into the mix, the inevitable outcome
   would be that the cat would escalate. With Angolan mercenaries.
   That would be bad.