It Explains a Lot

We got home from church this evening and went about the feeding of the children so we could get them to bed. I opened the pantry door and screamed.

Let me just say that I am not afraid of mice. Mice are rather cute, really. Unlike their rat cousins, which scare the bejeebers out of me. But mice have a place. That place is in a cage or outside. Never, under any circumstances, is it acceptable for a mouse to be roaming my house. Ever. Never, ever, ever. And when I open my pantry door, the last thing I expect to see is a mouse. In my pantry. Roaming around like it has a right to be there. It was the unexpectedness of the whole situation that made me scream.

There's something about a scream that fascinates me. If someone is screaming, that means things are going horribly wrong. Right? A mouse in the pantry could be on the low end of the scale of wrong. Someone could be seriously injured, the house could have caught fire, an axe murdered could have broken in. But it's almost always not a good thing when someone screams unexpectedly. So why, pray tell, do people come running when they hear a scream? I'd like to hope it's because, deep inside everyone, they have the desire to do good and help others. Otherwise, we'd all be gluttons for punishment.

So I screamed. The family came running. I took advantage of that fact and put the teen boy in charge of killing the mouse. It was in the pantry and there were five people and three dogs blocking the door, so as far as I was concerned, it was as good as dead.

Except it wasn't.

Mice are quick little buggers, they are. It managed to run out the door, past the guard, and under a chair. We moved the chair. It got under the book shelf. Josh poked it out and smacked it with a shoe. Much chaos and yelling was involved in this. The dogs were getting worked up into a tizzy. Micah was very excited about the shenanigans, even though he was clueless what was going on. But he had a shoe at the ready, because he didn't want to be left out.

The mouse survived the smackdown and ran under a stand. At this point, one of the spaniels was climbing over Josh, who was on the floor looking under said stand. I was quite impressed with the dog's mouse hunting enthusiasm. It briefly crossed my mind that we should not even have mice if she's that determined to eradicate them. Essie managed to hurdle Josh and ran to join her sister in the kennel to hide.

And that, apparently, is why we have mice.