You've got Mice!!!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Okay - good news/bad news over here. The cat was doing these eerie blood curdling banshee cries a few minutes ago. We went downstairs and found … a really beat up dead looking mouse, apparently the cat has decided to fulfil the typcial cat’s life role. The good news is, the cat didn’t wait and bring it up to the bedroom to show it off after we were settled in for the night; the bad news is (I just found out) this would be the cat’s first ever kill. The JRTerrier, of course, just ignored the whole situation. More good news: I was able to pick the thing up with benefit of a paper towel and get it the garbage without even retching once. Good Eric!!!

Lawrence: if she shows up with another one after lights out, I’m shipping both the cat and the mouse to you. Better yet, wanna buy a house cheap?

22

I haven’t tried the can trick because I don’t have any mousies. However, I did notice at work there was a mouse in the can & eventually it must have got thrown into the big can truck when they picked it up.

23

Mousing doesn’t come naturally to cats, or so I’ve been told. They need to be taught.

We’ve always had a cat. The only mousers were cats who had spent a good part of their kitten-hood with mom.

We only had kittens once, when we lived in a secluded area and allowed our female unspayed cat to roam outdoors. After she had kittens, she would bring half-dead (half-alive?) mice indoors, set them down next to her family, and encourage them to play.

And get this – when I worked in the Smith Tower building in Seattle, my office overlooked the roof of a building – we spent a summer watching a mamma seagull show her babies how to fly. No kidding – she would line them up, stand in front of them and flap her wings.

Okay, maybe it was just calisthenics, but it looked like they were getting flying lessons.

24

Supernerd, to summarize a huge problem two years ago with ONE mouse. Our (then) just past the 1 year warranty car, started having slippage in the transmission. Take it in, dealership wanted to rape us with repairs and since we didn’t purchase the extended warranty, we were fucked. (Thanks, Chrysler).

So we took it to a guy that my Father in Law has been going to for 20 years.And could do the repair job for mucho less. Great guy. Handles many cities police and ambulance vehicles.We figured we could trust him.(Besides, anyone who screws with my father in law will suffer more than any punishment that a judge could dish out because my FIL is as tenancious as a dog with a frisbee.)

We need to rebuild the transmission. $1,700 and a couple days later, we get the car back and all is well and fine. A week or so goes by, AND it’s doing it again. Getting stuck inbetween gears. Take it in, they check it out and figure it’s a sensor. Replace free of charge. No problems for about 10 days. THEN it does it again. Take it in. Run some tests. Figure it is a sensor again. No charge. Replace it. Runs fine for about another 10 days before it happens again. WTF?

This is driving the transmission guy nuts because he knows he did good work and he feels like shit because of the problem. He decides to see if the air filter is dirty/operating ok.If the air intake is clogged, it can cause a sensor to be thrown off. Opens it up ( from below, the car is on a lift) and out falls about 40 LARGE DOG COOKIES, a couple of pens, shredded garden gloves and string. THE FUCKING MOUSE WAS BUILDING his very own nest in my engine.

So, therein lays my much directed hostility towards the vermin.

I have a really nice, but dippy neighbor who just ADORES mice. I did not know this.We fight amiably about the subject all the time.

We ( hubby and I) are in their garage shortly after they move in. The house door is open
( no screen door ) and we (me, hubby, neighbor’s hubby) see a mouse running frantically for the steps to go inside the house. I grab a shovel and smash it on the head.

Having never exterminated a life before
(other than mosquitoes and bugs) I looked to the two he-men in the garage for their reaction.

My neighbor grinned and then said, " Never tell Mary ( his wife) what you just did. She loves mice."

My husband looked at me with a straight face and called me a wuss for not using my steel toed construction books to kill the thing. (Gawd, I love this man.)

I responded pragmatically, " I didn’t want to get blood on my shoes."