A new house for mouse

Tommy has a book about a mouse who finds an apple that won't fit in her house.  She goes on a hunt for a new house, striking out each time, and the search makes her so hungry that she eats most of the apple.   So, when she arrives back at her house, the apple fits.

WE HAVE A MOUSE, and if it is up to my husband, said mouse will have the opportunity to find a new house.  But friends, it will be a new house.  It will not be this one.

I saw it on Friday, but I thought it was my hair falling in front of my face.

Then, I saw it this morning and I made Eli go look for it.  And while I hoped that it was a piece of paper blowing across the kitchen floor, Eli confirmed that it was actually a mouse.

[I'm skipping this bit of the story because my reaction to this mouse was irrational and I don't really know who reads this blog.]

So then Eli and I began the great mouse negotiation.

I said, "we have to solve this immediately.  I will go buy a trap."

He said, "Let's get a humane trap. "

I said, "What in the world are you going to do with a live mouse?"

He said, "Put it outside."

I said, "But it will come inside again."

He said, "But I don't want to kill it."

I said, "Well, I can't really be in the same room with it, so you can do whatever you want as long as you walk it all the way to the green."

THEN, I went to the DIY and bought those glue traps because that's what the clerk told me to buy.  The most effective, he said.  I even bought the more expensive glue traps.  Quality, he said.

I came home and Eli looked at the trap and said, "No way.  I'm not doing that.  You know what happens?"

"Why, yes, I do," I said, "the mouse gets stuck and then you drown it in the mop bucket."

And Eli looked hor-ri-fied (which is fair since my face had been stuck in a hor-ri-fied expression for the past 25 minutes or so).

Rather than divorce, which is where I thought the conversation was heading, we agreed that Eli would go for a run past the Home Depot of the UK (it's called something else, but the buildings and color schemes are the same) and he would buy traps he was comfortable setting out (and then he would run home carrying them).

I did a quick calculation and decided I could live for 45 extra minutes with a mouse (or, god help us all, mice) in the house.

Lucky for me, Eli ran into a chap (that's what you call them here; I was on a conference call during which a man referred to the group of us, two women and a man, as "chaps") who had spoken with an exterminator prior to his trip to the UK Home Depot, and this man directed Eli to the "best" traps according to the exterminator. (Of course, I had already bought the most effective, quality mice traps on the market.)

Eli bought two of the "best" traps and one trap that will catch the mouse alive. (I am assuming he is prepared to come home early if the mouse gets caught in that one during the day tomorrow.)

Everybody keeps saying that I'm lucky it's not a rat, but I honestly don't know.  If there were a rat in my house, I would go to a hotel and refuse to come home until the problem was solved.   (I would happily contribute to the solution by calling an exterminator, and also arranging to meet said exterminator no closer than a block to the house to give him keys.)

There are moments in your life when you realize that you are a grown up.  I had this feeling when I moved into the apartment in the U District with Lauren and Jenny and Sarah.  I also had this feeling when I got married, and again when we had Tommy.  But god, as I walked home from the DIY, I realized that I AM A GROWN UP who must deal with her own mouse problem even though I HATE MICE.  And it was just horrible.

So wish us luck.  (And if you have any tips or suggestions, please do feel free to share.)

*We went to St. Pancras yesterday to see the two-story-high Christmas tree made of lego, and Tommy used the word glorious to describe the station.

*I think Lulu might know her colors.  She seems to like green the best, but maybe it's just the easiest to say.