An Unwanted Visitor

The past few weeks have been virtually the same thing over and over again. Cody goes to school ever day all day, and I work from home one week, and then fly back to Utah to work at work for a week. Next week I will have been doing the back and forth thing for 3 months, crazy it is has been that long. However the good news is that I officially have a last day of work. My last day of work in Utah will be on October 16. I am really not sure what I am going to do after that day. For the first time in my life I don't know exactly what I am going to do. Normally I have a plan of exactly how things are going to work out. I mean I always figured I would get a job out here but nothing seems to be working out. I have been sending out resumes and applying to jobs since the beginning of August but no luck.



Well on to the unwanted visitor. So I woke up yesterday morning to hear Cody banging the wall with something. I asked what he was doing. And he replied that there was a mouse in the wall behind our dishwasher and he could hear it moving around. Yeah...mice. So I knew I would be going to the store to get some traps. Well looking back there were a lot of clues we had mice...we just weren't smart enough to pick up on them. Well today we finally did. Better late than never right? Last Sunday (Sept. 13) when I went back to Utah, I made some biscuits that morning. Of course I didn't eat them all, I made the mistake of leaving them on the counter. I even looked at Cody before I left and said, "I am probably going to come home and see these still on the counter" we both laughed and didn't think much of it. Sure enough when I got back the same pan occupied the same spot on the counter. Only it had really suspicious looking black droppings all over it. The droppings were all along the counter top too. I was straining my brain to think back to when I last had rice and accidentally let some of the grains drop on the stove and burn. Even then I wondered how in the heck they tripled and got over the counter. Again I just threw out all logic and assumed it happened somehow. How dumb could I be? (you are probably all asking yourselves that). Well Cody made the comment that when he woke up one morning he saw 2 biscuits on the floor. He said, "its like they grew legs or something". Looking back we both bust in laughter when we think of this comment. Now it is quite obvious, mice were running rampant through are kitchen all night pooping everywhere nibbling on my baking powder biscuits. Must have been quite the party.



Now I put all this together this morning as I was eating my breakfast. I immediately went to the internet and googled images mice poop. To my shocking horror the pictures that loaded looked exactly like the drops on my counter. I swallowed about 100 times to keep my breakfast from rising any further in my esophagus. I was literally sick to my stomach. I still am when I think about it.



So I began my morning by making an emergency trip to Walmart for some mice supplies. While looking at the traps I saw a cheaper trap (4 for $2) or a more expensive (easier to set trap) 2 for $4. So I went with 2 cheap packs and 1 expensive pack. I knew while looking at the traps Cody was going to get really pissed off trying to set those cheapo ones. My better judgement told me that for an enjoyable to evening to just spend more money on the easy ones. But I couldn't justify the extra dollars over a stupid mouse trap so I bought the cheapo ones and figured Cody could just deal with it. At walmart I also bought plastic storage containers for flour, sugar, cornmeal, etc. Since I had just previously been scooping out of the bag I threw all those away to be safe and bought new bags of all that stuff.



When I got home I immediately got to work on my kitchen. Pulling all dishes out running everything through the dishwasher, cleaning up the mice poop, going through every drawer and cupboard looking for mice droppings. I was sickened to find a few mice droppings in quite a few of drawers. I ended throwing away all my dish towels (some had holes, again I am assuming from mice) and buying new ones. I was careful enough to wear a face mask, after all I don't want hauntivirus, but who knows maybe it is too late. I pulled out my oven and fridge and did a thorough cleaning behind both.



Cody got home about 4 and opened the first bag of cheapo traps. My whole body tensed as he began to set them. I knew it wasn't going to be pretty. After about a 100 snap sounds later and 500 cuss words Cody got the first trap set and was about to place it under the sink when it snapped as he put it down.....another 20 swearwords. I couldn't help but start laughing out loud which didn't help Cody's mood. I quickly pulled it together and focused my attention on something else. I guess Cody figured it out because all the traps got set and strategically placed.



I am happy to report that this morning we woke up to a disgusting fury mouse caught in one of our traps! Nothing made me happier than to see its pathetic stiff legs sticking straight up in the air!! Although we only caught one I still feel relieved. We will continue to keep our traps out just in case there are more.