Rats

I opened the glove box of the van a while back and saw a stash of half-eaten foods that the kids left there. While I was wondering why on earth the kids would have stuffed it there instead of just taking it to the house and tossing it, and thinking many uncharitable thoughts toward my own offspring, a gray nose with long whiskers and black beady eyes popped out of the hole where the light is.

I screamed like a girl. (Never mind that I am one.)

I am not afraid of mice, mind you. Not tame ones, not wild ones, not dead ones. Mice aren't fun to have where they shouldn't be, but they do not bother me in the least. But when a mouse practically jumps into your lap when you're least expecting it, it takes on a heart-stopping quality.

Aren't we the lucky ones that get a mouse in the van? How on earth do you go about killing that thing? A traditional trap would go off by bouncing down the highway (we live in the mountains, remember?). Poison would make that thing die way up in an unreachable crevice somewhere, forcing us to smell decaying carcass. A cat locked in the van isn't really an option for so many reasons.

So I bought a new kind of mouse trap. One where you pull the sticker off the hole in the bottom, pack it with peanut butter, put the sticker back over, and spin the whole thing to align the holes. The mouse walks into the hole to get the bait and the trap spins around again, thereby trapping the mouse inside. You never have to see it, and it's safely disposed of.

I had my doubts.

The very first night the mouse flipped over that trap, ate through the sticker and helped himself to a gob of peanut butter bigger than his head.

I packed in more bait, covered the hole with aluminum foil, and duck taped over it. (Why yes, we are rednecks. Why do you ask?) We haven't seen any evidence of the intruder since, and it's been weeks. This isn't to say that he's not laying low somewhere, just waiting for our defenses to lower. Or slowly chewing through wires up in the dash. Or wreaking havoc on the brake line.

Every time Becky calls shotgun I ask her to check the traps. I do this myself every time I'm in the van, but it's more fun to ask her. She's deathly afraid that something the size of a roll of tape will terrorize her into loss of bladder control. She stiffens up, her eyes get round, and she tentatively reaches toward the glove box door.

I stealthily reach over and tap her leg. She jumps and screams while we laugh hysterically.

She finds the ice scraper and holds it up like a weapon of mass destruction. She ever so quietly opens the door and pokes around in the box trying to get the trap out.

I remind her that the mouse is way more afraid of her than she is of it. Sneaking up on it quietly is the quickest way to catch a glimpse of it. She starts banging around and yelling loudly. I roll my eyes.

I yell, "BOO!" And then nearly run off the road for laughing so hard. She's so easy to make fun of.

I am a shameless mother for preying on my children's fears. Worst Parent of the Year will bypass me because they'll simply call Children and Youth. And we may or may not still have a mouse in the van.


(Photographed by Micah. The kid is a natural.)