Max: 1 Mouse: Nada
Those of you who have read this thread will know the joy I’ve had in the Max household lately (incidentally, read it all the way through, there’s more than one Tale of Mickey). We have figured out that the source of the joy is the house next door. To be clear, this place is a hovel, not unlike the one here.
The insane woman sold up, and the place is being gutted. I spoke to one of the guys doing the gutting (her SON, as it turns out!), and mentioned our mouse problem. The conversation went something like this:
Max: Oh, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind setting some mouse traps over here. Every time the place is disturbed all the mice come over my place.
Insane Woman’s Son: You won’t believe this. Today, I was cleaning up the kitchen. I picked up a lump of wood (cos, you know, everyone’s got a lump of wood lying about in their kitchen, right?), and found a nest of ten mice! I killed them all with a garden rake!
Max: Hee hee hee!
But we all know the mouse-capades didn’t end there, don’t we? Otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this post. True to form, after the most recent banging and crashing, a mouse moved over to our place. The first I knew of the little fucker was seeing it run from the lounge room to behind the pantry. I have concluded, based on past experience, that behind the pantry and/or oven is a preferred mouse haven. I have half a mind to pull the oven out and seal every damn hole with spakfilla. But I digress.
So I set a trap near the exit from the little space between the pantry and the oven. Loaded up with peanut butter, I felt confident the mouse wouldn’t be able to resist it. It couldn’t. Every morning, I’d come to find the trap closed, and just a little more peanut butter gone. But no mouse. That little fucker!
That was until last night. MaxBabe and I were watching Law and Order: SVU and perving on the ever-so-delicious Detective Olivia Benson. CLUNK went the trap. MaxBabe looked at it, and looked back and me, then back at the trap. CLUNK THUD Ahhhhh, the dulcit tones of a mouse struggling in the trap.
But when I went over, I couldn’t really see a mouse caught in the trap. In fact, the trap looked closed. All I could see was a tail squirming in the trap. One more struggle, and the mouse, and tail, were gone. THAT LITTLE FUCKER!
I grabbed my torch and peered into the little alcove. All I saw was a tail, moving behind the oven. And then, it was gone. Fuckit!
So, back to perving on Detective Benson. We were tired, and went to bed early, the mouse all but forgotten.
I slept through the night; very unusual for me. But I woke up at Dark O’Clock as my bladder felt a little overburdened. But I wasn’t ready to get out of bed just yet. MaxBabe, on the other hand, couldn’t ignore her bladder any longer, so she got up.
“AUGH!”, I heard from the general vicinity of the bathroom. Uhh… did I just hear something? Or did I dream it? I opened my eyes a little, and heard a confirmation. “Honey!”, yelled MaxBabe, “that fucking mouse is in the bathroom!”. Awww, crap.
I got up, and found MaxBabe outside the bathroom. She’d closed the door to the bathroom. “He’s IN there!!”, she hissed at me. “Righto”, says I, searching for a Mouse-Killing-Device. I found a suitable shoe and ever-so-slowly cracked the door open. “Keep an eye out for that little fucker!”, I said. “Yes, honey, I know!” whispered MaxBabe.
Now, before any of you ask why MaxBabe couldn’t perform the mouse-killing duties herself, here’s why: years of professional hockey have destroyed her knees. In the mornings, she’s lucky if she can walk, let alone get down on the floor and jump around to chase a mouse. So it was all down to me.
I crouched down low, assuming the position that had worked so well for me last time. I crept around the door, using the tried-and-true “slice the pie” method employed by law enforcement. So far, so good.
I closed the door behind me, not wanting the little fucker to escape. And there, in the corner, on a pile of dirty clothes, was THE MOUSE. I know it was THE mouse, and not some other mouse, because it had no tail. Heh. Must’ve nibbled it off after it got out of the trap last night. Hee hee hee!
I watched Stumpy, and he watched me. Never one to wait for an opportunity, I went for the kill. He RAN! Oh boy, did he run. “He’s a fast little fucker!”, I yelled out to MaxBabe. BANG CRASH I missed. And I missed again. “Little fucker!”, I screamed as my shoe hit the ground next to him.
He raced behind the toilet and I figured he was trying to sort out how to escape. It gave me a moment to reflect. There is no way out of this bathroom apart from the drain, which is covered by the bathmat, and the door, which is closed. Hmm. Mice can get under doors. With one eye on Stumpy, I yanked a towel off the towel rail and rolled it up. Then I placed it on the floor and jammed it against the bottom of the door. It made an excellent seal, and it was then… THEN… that I knew Stumpy would die in this room.
But MaxBabe chose that moment to remind me of why she’d got up in the first place. “Honey!”, a sense of urgency in her voice, “I have to pee!”. Aww, crap.
By this point, Stumpy had run behind the sink. He was that much closer to the door. If he made a dash for it while MaxBabe was getting into, or out of, the bathroom… all of this would be for nought. “Ok, honey… open the door very, very slowly!”. I kept an eye on the sink while she got in, and did her thing, and got out.
“Righto, mouse”, I said. “It’s just you and me now. And I KNOW you can’t get out!”. I tried not to laugh maniacally. I figured that would just be toying with it. I started whacking the bottom of the sink. Surely Stumpy would run! No. Nothing.
I eyed the pile of clothes. They’d make excellent cover. One by one, I removed articles of clothing from the pile. I shook each item vigorously, then threw it over towards the towel. Finally, I’d shaken the last piece of clothing. Nothing.
I picked up my pile of books, and the box they sit on. Nothing.
I picked up the packet of toilet paper and examined it. Nothing.
I peered behind the toilet. Nothing.
Once again, I examed behind the sink. Nothing.
Awww, crap.
“There’s no WAY that little fucker is not in this room!”, I cursed. So I picked every item up and moved it back to its original location, being sure to make as much loud banging and crashing as I could. No mouse to be found.
And finally, all that was left against the door was the towel. The one last bastion of hope.
I prodded the towel with my foot, and up jumped Stumpy! He made a run for it, but clearly his stamina was running low. Still, he was pretty quick. BANG CRASH THUD! And then, as if to figure out his next move, he paused. It was, as it turns out, his last move. Powered by adrenaline, I pounded my shoe onto Stumpy’s head. He lay there, tail-less, his little feet wiggling briefly. And then, he was gone.
Hee hee hee!
“HONEY!”, I screamed, “I GOT HIM!”. There was silence on the other side of the door. “HONEY!”. Nothing.
Worried Stumpy would come back to life, I kept an eye on him while I opened the door. MaxBabe had gone back to bed. Unbelievable. How could she sleep through this epic battle?
I scooped Stumpy up into a plastic rubbish bag, and took him to his last resting place, the wheelie bin. “HA HA HA!”, I yelled victoriously, “Max: 1, Mouse: ZERO!!!”. I danced a little jig, then went back to bed.
The dogs were asleep. MaxBabe was asleep. I woke her to tell her the good news. I flexed my muscles, and gloated about my mouse-killing prowess. “Well done, honey.”, she muttered, half-asleep.
Then she rolled over, back to sleep. And once again, not a creature was stirring… not even a mouse.
