Tiny visitor

The first thing this morning, after I got dressed and came downstairs, my wife said to me, "Can you look in the cupboard on the top shelf? I found mouse droppings."

So I got the step stool, opened the cupboard and looked on the top shelf.

Sure enough, there were mouse droppings. Five or six of them, from what I could see.

No mouse in the trap though.

So I took out the trap and there were more droppings behind it. I decided to re-bait the trap with some fresh peanut butter and some crumbled nut bar, and I put it back on the shelf.

Then my wife asked me if I could take everything else off the shelf.

Okee dokee. I started removing things, one by one, handing them to her. More droppings.

And more droppings.

And even more droppings.

"This was one busy little mouse", I thought.

The last thing on the shelf was a plastic basket. In the basket, my wife keeps a bag of chocolate chips, bag of coconut, and other assorted stuff like that.

I grabbed the basket and pulled it out.

Ever have that weird feeling when you're doing something, where you know that there's a chance something else will happen, but in the back of your mind you're telling yourself that it won't happen, and then it does?

That's what it was like with the basket. I was fairly sure that I wouldn't find anything, other than more mouse poop, but when I got that basket out... there he was. Sitting in the corner of the cupboard, looking back at me.

What else could I do? I put the basket back in the cupboard and closed the door.

My wife freaked out. Which is strange, because she loves domestic rats. My sister in-law has two and she has no problem holding them.

My wife said that we have to get the mouse out. I asked her what I was supposed to do? Reach in and pick it up? What if it ran out and fell to the floor, then took off?

I told her it was best to keep it in the cupboard and hope that it goes into the live trap sometime today.

I took a picture of him before we taped the cupboard doors closed, and taped over the openings. Yeh, he could chew through the tape, but I'm hoping he'll get into the trap so we can release him outside in the forest somewhere.

I don't know what we'll do of he doesn't.

Or worse, if we get home and find that he did chew through the tape.

Or even worse... DIDN'T chew through the tape covering the small opening on top of the cupboards that he used to get into the house. That would mean he'd still be somewhere else in the house. :)

We have a cat, but she doesn't seem to be aware of the mouse's existence. If she is aware of it, she's not showing it by hanging around in the kitchen.

At the last place we lived, we caught a few mice. We had another cat then, and he would walk on the counters and stare up at the cupboards.