Damn Mice

I have a LOT to do today.

The sun is shining, it's SO gorgeous out. The house needs to be cleaned, of course, laundry done, and sugar snaps need to go into the ground. I want the yard cleaned, I want the everything done, and I start my day each day multitasking- poking the blog with a sharp stick, returning blog comments and catching up on hops and coffee, while nursing the baby for a marathon hour long session.

It's what we do, each day. Not today. Today I settled into the couch with a steaming cuppa only to see the dreaded yellow exclamation point over my internet connections.

At this point I have to marvel at how far I've come in the last two years. While not completely and totally tech savvy, I can work around a router and modem with no assistance. A quick glance at the cords behind the modem revealed the problem: A mouse had EATEN the damn cord down to the copper.

I'm at my wits end with these things already. I've killed over a dozen since we've moved in. I've tried peppermint oil, potato flakes, and snap traps, with various degrees of success. We live in a half double, and so, we need the mice to be gone from both sides of the house. I'm loathe to bring it up to the neighbors, I really like them, and there are five or six things I'd like to mention to them, the biggest being the mice situation.

*big, deep, sigh*

How does the conversation go? Is there a good way to bring this up? "Excuse me, Lovely Mr. Neighbor Whom I Adore for NOT playing Guitar Hero at 3 AM while Smoking Pot Like My Old Neighbors, Do you by any chance happen to have a rodent problem? Because you're sharing it with me, and I don't want to put down poison and accidentally kill your cat that moans outside my front door in the cold."

Ugh.

I guess the point of this is, if I promised you a visit to your blog or a vote in your contest or an entry in your giveaway, I'm about twelve hours behind, and I'll get there before too long, I promise.

And if you have any ideas on how to execute a rodent mass murder without harming plants, animals, children, the ozone, or small orphans in a far off country without child labor laws, I'd be glad to hear them.

Is it a crime if I blow up my kitchen slightly on purpose?

I like to think of myself as an earth friendly kind of girl. I don't dye my hair, I save clothes from one child to the next, my thermostat is set at sixty downstairs during the day, fifty at night, and upstairs stays completely off till bed time.




These things are not simply because I'm cheap.

I promise. Well, not completely because I'm cheap. We recycle. We freecycle. We do our part to keep our trash put out minimal. I try not to use harmful chemicals. I'm a big fan of vinegar and Burt's bees-not together of course.

I swear to God, I'm going to drop an atom bomb on my kitchen.

It's inhabited by strange, stretchy, acrobatic mice. The little bastards are effing cute as hell. And gross. And... scampery. Yes. I'm aware that's not a word. But it should be. It should be a word to describe the little monsters that appear to be performing circus acrobatics on their trek to the Land Behind My Stove.

That's MY STOVE. You. Little. Bastards.

I swear, I honestly swear, I'm so freaking serious, I will buy poison if I see one more. One more cute, fuzzy, icky, stretchy, gotta-be-mutated freakish little mouse dude.

I will buy poison, and screw the earth.

Amen.