July 16, 2007

• …Touille…

  Last Sunday, Bubba and I finally came face to face with our uninvited house guest. I’ve named him Touille in honor of his famous animated uncle, Ratatouille…

  

  So last Saturday, as I was slumbering away and having nightmares about work, I reached a point in my dream where I was sitting at my desk typing. Yes, I was dreaming about work–a sign that I’m in dire need of a vacation. In any event, despite my subconscious state, the sound of typing just seemed a little bit too real and I gradually awoke to the sound of typing, or at least what I thought was typing, in my room. I lifted up my head to see who else was in my room and discovered no one. As I did this though, the typing stopped. I figured that I was probably just still in my dream or something, so I went back to sleep. Just as my head hit the pillow though, I heard the typing again. At first, I thought it was some kind of ghostly entity in my room, but then I came to my senses and started weeding out all the different possibilities for the noise, finally arriving on a mouse. I got up and started moving some items in the room, but to no avail. I was a little paranoid at this point, but I decided to just go back to bed and that was the end of that; or so I thought…

  The next day, I hear the scratching noise again. I get up to go to the bathroom and when I get back to my room, I discover that a present had been left for me: a piece of candy had been chewed through, and the remnants of the shredded wrapper were still there. I wasn’t really alarmed at this point, mainly because I had already conceded to the fact that we had a mouse problem and that there really wasn’t much that I could do about that. In any event, I was quite awake after receiving this confirmation of his existence, but I didn’t pay too much attention to it and decided to just go about my daily routines and check my email. As I was doing so, a little black puffball shot across the room in my peripheral vision. I stopped typing and just looked towards that particular corner of my room. A couple of seconds later, he ran behind my bed and got himself cornered. At this point, my adrenaline levels were pumping and I was seriously freaked out. Let me make it clear now that I am NOT a fan of mice, or any kind of rodent for that matter. I grabbed my Cal umbrella and started banging on the adjacent wall to Bubba’s room to wake him up so we could capture this critter. I kept yelling his name and banging on the wall for what seemed to be almost 5 minutes and he eventually crept out to see what all the commotion was about. A hanger, flashlight, bag of coins, postal tube, some ingenuity, and about 45 minutes later, we had the pesky intruder. No worries, for all you PETA people out there, we disposed of him properly and he was quite delicious! Ok, not really, we set him free in Golden Gate Park, and he should be enjoying his freedom now.

  
  
  the culprit

  As we were driving to drop Touille off at the park, I was contemplating keeping the little bugger as a pet seeing as how we had kind of bonded through the whole stressful ordeal. I thought about how it’d be interesting to have a mouse for a pet, and he did look kind of harmless. Then I came to my senses and realized that as cute as he may be, he’d still poop and I’d be the one who’d have to clean up after him. Additionally, I’m sure his family probably wouldn’t appreciate seeing their offspring locked up either, so in the end, I’m happy with my decision. So creepy critters beware! For just when you think you’ve lost us after your nibbling feast, Bubba and I will be there!

  • 7:17 pm
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