Been in the house 5 years, first mouse.

Come to think of it, been on the planet 36 years, first mouse. Never had to deal with one.

This ought to be a treat. I went out to the store to buy some traps - went with the sticky ones rather than the neckbreaky ones, because I don't want to wake up to a *snap!* noise in the middle of the night and have to go check it out. None of the poison ones will work because anywhere I could put it is possibly a place where Elizabeth could find it.

So I've got one over in the corner where it ran, and another one under an end table between it and the kitchen, which I think was in its original path.

We shall see. We do have an exterminator, but that's always been for ants and such. But he'll be getting a call tomorrow.

Update: Well, that didn't take long - about an hour and a half from the time I posted that? I'm sitting here playing Sudoku online and I hear a rustling coming from under the end table. Got him.

Now what? I let him thrash for a little bit until he is quiet, hoping that there's some sort of poison on that trap that is quickly doing him in. I take a peek under the end table with a flashlight...yup, there he is. He blinks. Ug. Part of me wants to just go to bed and let him give up the ghost over night. But I'm sure Kerry would love it if she heard him thrashing again. "You left him in my family room?"

This the part where my dad and my brother can begin laughing. I go to the kitchen and get a garbage bag, and an oven mitt. Don't ask me what the hell I'm going to do with the oven mitt, but thoughts of Mr. Mouse making one last desperate attempt at freedom cross my mind. I have no idea how sticky this stuff is, and whether he can break free. Then I get a better idea. I go to the closet where we have one of those three foot long poles with a claw on one end and a trigger on the other. Kerry actually got it from her work, it's for little old ladies in wheelchairs who drop things on the floor.

So here I am, garbage bag in one hand, reachy grabby thing in the other. I get rid of the oven mitt because I can't work the reachy grabby thing with it. I put down the garbage bag and very carefully use the grabby thing to take hold of the trap and pull it into the bag. Which I promptly move down cellar. Luckily trash day is tomorrow.

For the record (and for my Buddhist friends) that whole experience bothered the hell out of me. I did not enjoy watching a living creature stuck in a trap and unable to escape. Worse still was having to put it in a trash bag and put it down in the cold cellar, where I assume it will freeze to death. The thing doesn't realize it came into my house, after all. I assume it was just looking for food.

But I didn't let that stop me from getting it away from my house and my family. I may be new agey but not to that extent. And yes, if the store had had catch and release traps I would have gone with those. The little bugger's suffering is already bothering me, and I'm sitting here contemplating whether to go downstairs and just give it one good shot with the sledgehammer, but that just feels like a pretty nasty way to go, too. Leave it to me to miss (I would certainly leave it in the bag, I'm not about to watch it smoosh) and maim the thing.