My head hit the pillow, the light went out and....the chewing began. Behind my head!
Some background: the thermometer at the back door says ten below. That is one of the colder readings we have gotten at our house. Another fact is that the house is 150 years old, and there are crevices here and there amongst the river stones that make up the foundation. In summer we have little garter snakes going in and out, which gives me the willies (although they are harmless) but I figure they eat the mice that would come in otherwise. It is not summer now, though, is it?
SO, there is this gawdawful chewing in the wall behind my head in bed. All four of us are in the bed keeping warm, cat, dog, wife, me. That changes, with me banging on the wall, which accomplishes nothing. The cat moves to the floor behind the bed. I march off to another room and fall asleep. The wife and dog sleep through everything....
EXCEPT for the crashing and little fearful "cheepcheepcheep" sounds at midnight. I find the cat staring at the clothes hamper...I life the hamper and WOOHOO there goes Mickey, racing for the bed...Spike cat, I must say, seems merely amused by all this, because I am wondering why he is WATCHING the mouse and not kicking its azz.
Mickey gets under the bed and I am there, next to the cat and find...the hole. Just like in a cartoon, the little fukker chewed a hole in the baseboard so he could come out and...get in bed with us to keep warm? Because really, the kitchen is the other way! I get into bed and try to sleep...but there are periodic THUMPS for the next hour...right UNDER my head, as the mouse tries to come back out and the cat jumps at him.
Again, around one something, there are huge crashes and thumps...inches under my head...and that awful "cheepcheepcheep" sound a distressed mouse makes...Mickey is trapped in the corner, behind a book, 21 pound Spike cat ready to....well, he hasn't done much yet, has he? I was hoping for some VIOLENCE but Spike is so dang friendly....
OK, I figure I grab the little rodent and toss him out the door to make his way in the world. I am not a violent person, I wish him no harm, BUT HE DOES NOT BELONG IN MY BEDROOM. I don't care what little animals do, but they can't do it in my bedroom. I draw the line there....
So, pushing the book to hold his body I reach out to grab Mickey and get...BITTEN. I am trying to save this creature's life and he bites me....
There is no blood, but in my shock I drop him...he goes back behind the book. The wife hands me a glove. I grab again, and MICKEY GOES ON A ONE WAY TRIP TO MY SEPTIC TANK via the terlet.... and we all fall asleep again....
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9 comments:
I hereby dub thee Sir Cat for the Night Knight!
Oh boy, I have been through a similar story many times. Since we have log walls the mice like to get into the ceiling. I stand on the bed and bang on the ceiling to try and scare them away. Like Spike, my cat likes to play with them, but seldom eliminates them.
I hope that tonight you get a better sleep. In the mean time... take a nap this afternoon!
We also live in an old house (half, anyway, was built in 1845, the other half we built in 2005). Mice are a constant problem in the fall and winter. And while our cat (when she was a tad younger) would gladly catch all manner of rodents outside, she never seemed to have much interest in the ones inside!
But so far, the field mice have been relatively friendly --we've picked many up and never gotten bitten by one! Spike must've put that one in a very bad mood :-)
Oh, ugh!
UGH! MICE! They are the WORST kind of house pest. I hope your Spike keeps them off your turf now!
Spike must be the friendliest cat in the world, which is not a bad thing at all until you have a mouse eatting holes in your bedroom wall.
That freaked me out. There's no way I could have picked the mouse up by hand. Strangely I could hear noises in the ceiling last night but they stopped. They sounded more like a bird in the roof though. At least that's what I'm telling myself. Wishing you a much more peaceful night. (Not expecting any mice to be featured on your mugs in the near future.)
Sounds like the sort of night I have when I can hear a mosquito in the room. A little trick I learned when we lived next to farm fields a while back: chase your mouse with the open end of a cardboard tube with the end in your hand blocked. When cornered the mouse sees the lovely little dark hole - and runs into the tube. The core tube from kitchen foil is good.
Oh my.. this is familiar in so many ways. I have picked (scooped) up a mouse with my hands and deposited it outside to save ITS freakin' life from my cats who were toying with it. It was only later that I realized I could have been bitten. A mouse bite can go really deep. I hope yours isn't bad.
A few mornings ago, there was a dead one on the floor beside my slippers. I was VERY grateful that the cats didn't deposit it in my slippers.. or my bed.
And this morning, I dreamed that a mouse fell from the rafters (which don't exist in reality) above my bed and landed on me.. and just stayed there while Frank figured out how to remove it.. which felt like ten minutes. When he finally lifted it by the tail, we saw that it was a rat. I need that dream analyzed!
I hope your own mousecapades are over now.
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