WHEN I was growing up, I had a pet rat. He liked to lick the bottoms of my bare feet. (It made me giggle.) One night my mother accidentally stepped on it and that was the end of the rat. I also had mice as pets...I really loved those mice! Here is one of my favorite poems:
MICEI think mice are rather nice;Their tails are long, their faces small;They haven't any chins at all.Their ears are pink, their teeth are white,They run about the house at night;They nibble things they shouldn't touch,and, no one seems to like them much,but, I think mice are rather nice.----Rose Fyleman
Fast forward to the present...We have a mouse "problem". Not just a little problem-- a big problem. These cute little mice romp around the house at night, making themselves known by triggering the motion-detecting light in the closet, rattling the pots and leaving little calling cards everywhere. They chew on all sorts of things-- cork trivets, rubber cooking utensils, bars of bathroom soap, a shelf and all manner of paper. They leave little piles of stuff, from paper to plum pits in backs of cupboards. We discovered their greatest accomplishment in the motion-detecting closet -- They had nibbled a neat square hole bottom of a 3 pound bag of almonds. Our eyes opened in disbelief when we discovered that half the bag was gone! We had a big laugh, imagining a mouse (likely more than one mouse) busily making trips carrying precious cargo to a hiding place.
Yes, living with mice can be amusing, but we would rather they lived somewhere else. A friend recommended this electronic thingy that you plug into the wall. He said the mice will be gone in a couple of weeks-- they just find a place to live where they don't have put up with the electrical field propagated through the house's wiring. So we waited. We waited a month. We waited more and then some more. We know there are fewer mice because they don't turn on the closet light as often. BUT they are still here...This morning I found a calling card on a fork ... YUCK! The next step is to purchase some traps that will capture the mousies, but not hurt them. We plan on taking them on a short drive to a creek a couple miles away where they can make a nice little home in the field by the creek. (Sounds like a nice neighborhood.)
In celebration of mice, I offer some mouse products for your enjoyment.
