A Frouse in the House…

Do you remember this story?  And then the follow up?  Yeah, good times… 

Well………  We had a little visitor last week.  A not-so-well-loved visitor. 

The Mister’s job has been taking him out of town.  A lot.  And you guys know how I feel about that…  That’s another story for another day…  Anyway, on one of his recent overnights, for two nights mind you, he leaves me early in the a.m. with this statement:

“Love you.  *kiss*  Have a good day.  I’ll see you day after tomorrow, k?  OH, and by the way, I think we have a mouse in the house.”  And then he runs.

NO WAY, NO YOU DIDN’T. 

Me, shouting after him:  “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY???????????????”

The Mister, running towards the door, yelling over his shoulder:  “Yeah, I think we do.  I think I saw one this morning.  It could have been a frog.  It was dark.” 

He almost made it to the door before I tackled his ass and put him in a headlock.

“What do you mean you think you saw one?!?!?  And that it could be a frog.  Was it a frog or a mouse????  Because they most definitely are not the same thing.  What did you see?!?!?  WHAT DID YOU SEE?!?!?!”

He went on to tell me that it was dark and he was walking through the living room and thought he saw something hopping like a frog.  It hopped around the corner towards Tucker’s room, so he rushed around the corner to inspect, and found the hallway completely empty.  He said it was weird, that he expected to see a frog sitting there, but since nothing was there, he was thinking maybe it was a mouse.  That a frog wouldn’t have just vanished into thin air like that.  But, he swore, it really looked like a frog.

What.The.Hell?

So, I let him out of the house unharmed and he went on his merry way, leaving me with a frog or a mouse or a combination thereof…  A frog is one thing.  A mouse, now that’s something completely different.

I opted for frog.  All morning long I was jumping around corners and snatching up bedskirts expecting to find a cute little frog sitting there staring at me.  I told the kids we had a frog.  I called the Mister at least fifteen times to confirm that he really and truly thought it was a frog…  I was feeling much better about the whole thing.  We were even joking about the “frouse” (frog-mouse combo…) in the house.

Until…………………………… 

I was opening Avery’s bedroom door to attempt a clean up.  The Gs were over the night before and the kids d-e-s-t-r-o-y-e-d Avery’s room…  Like you couldn’t see a square inch of the floor kind of destroyed.  We were too drunk tired to care that night, so we left it for the morning.  So, in I went to try and do something with the sea of pink and purple and green tulle and sparkles and crowns and dolls and plastic food and ten thousand mother fucking Polly Pocket shoes, when I saw it.   It was no frog. 

Upon opening the door, I spy it…  A giant ass, monster, prehistoric sized wharf rat with glistening fangs baring its teeth and hissing at me…  (Not really, it was a tiny little mouse, running to hide, but that’s what I saw upon first glance…)  It was a rodent scampering out of the pouffy pile of shit on the floor and making its way behind Avery’s kitchen.  I immediately slammed the door shut, fell on the floor and started hyperventilating.

Well, not really…  It wasn’t that bad.  I shut the door quickly and ran into the kitchen snatching up the phone to call the Mister…  I didn’t care that he was in an important meeting and couldn’t be interrupted.  I didn’t care that he was out of town…  He was going to do something, damn it.  Of course, he didn’t answer.  Seeing as how he was in a super important meeting, in another town, and couldn’t be interrupted.  And I’m sure it also had to with the fact that he had run out of the house that morning leaving me with a rodent infestation…  And he was scared…  And I don’t blame him.

I was on my own.  I called my trusty exterminator, who probably already thinks I’m insane (read the linkies provided at the top.)   He didn’t answer, either.  What the hell was wrong with these people?!?!?  Didn’t they know I had a crisis on my hands?!?!  The two men in my life that should be there for a rodent infestation…  The two men I trust the most in the world with my rodent and/or bug problems…  I left him a rambling, crazy message and when he hadn’t returned my call in thirty minutes, I left three more.  Then called the home office and had them call him, because I was calling his personal cell phone.  Hey, he’d given it to me…  I bet he changes it now, though.

Now, you know what a germaphobe I am, and if you read the linkies I provided up top, then you’ve been refreshed on the seriousness of my germaphobia.  Especially when it concerns rodents.  And rodents in my house, well……  You can only imagine.  My stress level was through the roof.  I ran back to Avery’s room, and as much as it pained me to do it, I stuffed a towel under the door.  I mean, it was bad enough that it was in her room and all of her toys would have to be burned, but I didn’t want to have to decontaminate the whole entire house…  So, I trapped it.  In my little Princess’ bedroom.  *Vomit*  

All morning I was racking my brain on how it could have gotten in…  Were there more?  Where all had it been to spread its little rodent germs???  Do I need to call Stanley Steamer to come clean all the carpets???  Was it carrying diseases???  Is there a vaccination against the bubonic plague??!?!?

(I’d been leaving the back door open a lot while we played outside…  NO more.  Absolutely no open doors for even a second.  It will get you yelled at.  Needless to say, the Mister is putting up a screen door this weekend.  He’s tired of getting yelled at.)

Finally, after three excruciatingly long hours, the exterminator shows up.  He comes in, trying to guilt me just a little about all the phone calls and the tattling to the office…  All of that, I completely did not hear…  I did not care.  I’d of called his mama if I thought it would’ve gotten his ass here faster.   He’s nice, and he humors me, and he didn’t give me too much grief… 

He came on in and put those sticky traps all around Avery’s sweet room.  (Which was hard with a sea of toys on the floor…)  Gives me the run down on mice, tells me not to panic, there was no need to call Stanley Steamer, we’re talking about one little harmless mouse, not a pack of dirty city rats, I didn’t need to worry about germs or diseases or vaccinations of any kind, etc, etc, etc…  He tells me not to let her back in the room and to keep the door shut until it’s caught…  Okay………………  It’s her room.  How long can this take???  Apparently up to two days.  WHAAAA? 

I was just so relieved that he had come to my rescue and talked me off the ledge about the germs that it didn’t really occur to me at the moment that he was leaving me with this problem.  I mean, I was expecting him to come in and crawl around on the floor, with, I don’t know, a rat catching net and some cheese and get the mother fucking thing out of my house…  Not leave me with a pile of sticky traps and tell me to have a good day.  I was just assuming he was going to wait around, like it wasn’t a Friday afternoon and he didn’t have anything better to do, until the little thing was caught.

So, I’m walking outside with him, thanking him, practically prostrate and kissing his bug spray covered black Reeboks, when it occurs to me that he’s actually leaving…  More panic ensues…  What am I supposed to do with it when it’s caught?!?!?  But, I didn’t want to seem like a total freak and that I was seriously expecting him to wait, after he just told me it could take up to two days, so I, as nonchalantly as I could, asked, “So what do I do when he’s caught?”  I did not want to hear that answer. 

He says, with a chuckle, ”Well, nine times out of ten, they’re still alive, just wiggling and squirming and squealing like you wouldn’t believe.” 

Okay.  Great.  SO WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT IT?!?!?! 

I shit you not, he said, “Well, you just fold up the sticky trap and you *makes the motion of whacking it on the concrete* dispatch of it.”

WHAAAAAAAAAA?  I’m sure my mouth was agape.  So, wait, I’m thinking, let me get this shit straight…  Not only are you, the FUCKING EXTERMINATOR, whose job it is to get rid of rodents, leaving me with one in my house, but you are also expecting ME to kill it, too??????  It took me a minute as my mind reeled…  I’m sure I staggered a bit.

After I had recovered my senses, I said, “Well, my father-in-law (who had been called and put on stand-by) is coming later.  Hopefully, it will be on the trap and he can handle it.” 

And get this…  This is the best (worst) part…  As if it wasn’t already bad enough, he says, “Well…….  Be sure not to leave it on the trap too long….  They’ve been known to gnaw their own legs off to get off…  And that’s a mess.”

Ya think? 

That’s all I needed…  The Mister out of town and I hear all this squeaking and squealing and burst in the door to Avery’s room to see a rat pulling itself around the room by its little bloody stumps. 

Oh.My.God. 

I think he knew he’d better leave at that point.  Or either I was just in too much shock at that image in my head to hear him say goodbye…  Either way, he left me standing in my driveway with a pile of extra sticky traps in my hand, should I need more. 

Can you guess how many times I called the Mister that afternoon?  Can you guess how many times he actually answered his phone?  Yeah.  None.  He finally responded to an email much later in the afternoon…  Chicken shit.

My in-laws came for dinner and I made my father-in-law check the trap ten zillion times before he left.  My mother-in-law actually spent the night with me, with my father-in-law saying, bravely for her, that she would take care of it for me should the mouse get caught while she was here.  When he left, she said, “I don’t what the hell he thinks I’ll do about it…” 

Anyway, we weren’t woken up to the sounds of squeaking and squealing and there were no bloody stumps stuck to the trap and a missing mouse, nor did we have to “dispatch” of him ourselves….  We woke up to a pretty cute little, already dead mouse stuck to one of the traps.  No drama.  As if we hadn’t already had enough…  I put on two layers of latex gloves and disposed of it and shut the door on the mound of toys and dress up clothes and Polly Pocket outfits, waiting for the Mister to get home to decide what to do with it all…  I was thinking bonfire…

If any of you want to clean out your kids’ rooms, feigning a mouse trapped inside is a good way to do it.  Avery never once protested or questioned us when we said we might have to get rid of some stuff because of the mouse germs…  She was very okay with it…  And we got to weed out all the broken crap and Happy Meal toys without a fuss…  My already behind laundry pile has grown by a good bit, though, since anything that could be washed was shoved into garbage bags and thrown in there to wait its turn.

I have washed her dress up clothes (her fifty princess dresses and whatnot…) But, ten thousand stuffed animals may make it to the dump undetected.  And if she ever remembers and asks me where Puffy the Pink Pony is, I’ll just blame it on rat germs.  She hasn’t asked, though, where anything is, and it’s been over a week now.  Her room has never been so clean.  Especially since the Mister steam cleaned the carpets and rug and we scrubbed, cloroxed and lysoled everything else…  Each and every single solitary mother fucking Polly Pocket shoe was cleaned…  It was a chore.  That mostly the Mister performed.

And he better get his ass home with a quickness today and get busy on that screen door.