She locks the doors and tugs on each window.
She feels secure as she goes to bed.
Peering eyes from an opened field,
See the vulnerability of her fortress.
In silence he enters.
Creeping past her naive slumber,
He feasts on her spoils.
She is awakened.
Her movement stills his.
He hides in the shadows.
She unknowingly enters,
A step away from where he waits.
He, now intruded upon, shows himself.
She screams.
He flees.
She tiptoes through her shattered sanctuary.
Walls of brick and mortar seem as thin as paper.
She sleeps with the lights on.
.
I hate rodents. Hate them with all of my soul. Two years ago a little family of mice decided to colonize behind my dresser. Their endless scratch, scratch, scratching was enough to nearly send me screaming to an asylum. And when one of them decided to dart across my foot during a late night bathroom run, THAT WAS IT! I took out the whole lot of them. First with traps (there's an interesting story with that, but I'll spare you the details) then with poison.
.
Thankfully I have not seen any since. And now that I have my trusty little Westie here I may never see them again.
Because one of the fine qualities of Westie dogs is that they are designed for rodent control. That's right rodent control. Can you think of a better quality? I can't. And let me tell you, this little girl does her job well. She just recently took out a ginormous gopher, prairie dog type animal. Not really sure what it was, but it was large and our dainty Miss Lily took it down.
And having a child (backed up by cousin support) who is willing to dispose of Lily's latest kill, makes it all the better (I didn't want to see the beast. Dead rodents scare me almost as much as live ones. There's a story there too, but I'll spare you again).
I guess one of the perks of living in the country is that you can chuck undesirables over the fence without disturbing the neighbors. And when a little neighbor boy did happen by, he wasn't disturbed by his "lucky" dead rodent find at all. In fact he was quite delighted to kick it around, poke it with a stick and smash it with a rock, causing my sweet little girls to squeal in horror. 
7 comments:
I am getting one of those dogs. That is awesome. So many things you said made me think I was writing the story! Some day, I need to meet you :)
Ugh! I hate mice too! I just know that I am going to die of the hantavirus. Luckily (?) we have so many feral cats around that I haven't seen a mouse since we moved into this house. Otherwise, I'd have to borrow your dog.
Yay Miss Lily.
ew, the scratching is making me cringe right now. And in your bedroom?!?!? I wouldn't be able to sleep.
I used to wonder why the women in cartoons stood on chairs screeching when they saw a cute little mouse...until I saw one in my house! Why do they scare me inside, but not outside?! And I'm with you on the dead rodents--yikes! My hubby had to dispose of the one we caught a few years ago (thankfully, the only one I've ever seen in my 9 years in this house...not counting the mummified one we discovered behind the fridge when we painted the kitchen last fall). I would love to hear the other two stories sometime. I have some great "mouse stories" from one of our student apartments!
Wow! That puts cats right out of a job.
Our apartment when we first moved to Arizona had mice. I discovered this fact in the middle of the night of the day I brought my second-born child home from the hospital. It was not a happy moment! I'd love to hear your other mice stories, too.
Post a Comment