1 down, 1 to go...

So there I was...

minding my own business, half asleep and probably drooling on my pillow. I must have already been awake but chose to flop back on top of the sheets. Then all of a sudden I felt something on my foot, and my knee-jerk reaction was to 'flick' my foot.

The strange thing was is that I heard a sound following the twitch. This indicates something that is not a person, and something that is not a flying insect.

First thought as I woke up: "What the hell is that". I've had similar thoughts waking up to fire-alarms, telephones, screaming neighbours, barking dogs, and after a week with a head full of acid and a 24 of Molsons. So things were unusual, but not unusually unusual.

Second thought: Cockroaches.
Third thought: Shit.
Forth thought: Where'd that bugger go?

I quickly saw a 2 inch creature crawl under my dirty socks.

Now as luck would have it, I keep all my laundry in a box at the foot of my bed. Why? Well I used to have a laundry bag, but that is another story....

So I started pulling clothes out of the box. It was mostly empty since I had just done laundry the night before.

As I see the critter scurry again, I think to myself. That is a pretty nice sized cock-ey-roach. I mean, I saw quite a few in Thailand. They get to be a fair size, but this was a whopper.

As I carefully removed more clothes, I soon discovered that it wasn't a cock-roach at all, but a small door mouse.

BASTARDS!

He was stuck in the box, but he could almost jump over the side of it.

I quickly got a glass jar from the kitchen and put it over him. This he did not like as he started to squeak.

I then got a piece of paper and covered the glass jar and punched some holes in it so he could breath. I wanted to temporarily preserve the creature so that I could back-up my crazy story.

When my room-mate arrived home. I showed him the rodent in the glass jar and then he said to me. "What was that"?, as he pointed behind the couch.

I thought he was shitting me until I saw it for myself, an identical twin of mouse number one.

10 minutes later, we had him in the same box that his brother was earlier in.

We put them both in the box for some photo ops and a planned release outside. The one that had been in a jar for about 8 hours was not looking so hot, but his recently caught brother was making every attempt to jump out of the box.

Both of us went to investigate where the intruders were coming from. About 30 seconds later I got the shout from down the hall. "We seemed to have lost a mouse".

"Oh shit.", I gasped.

A thorough search yielded no trace.

As the little mouse who had been sitting in the jar all day wasn't looking like he could tackle the outside all by himself, we decided it was time to do the humane thing: -Burial at sea-

As I tipped the box, with the most English accent possible my room-mate said "Au revoir" as he simultaneously hit the flush mechanism.

One down, at least one to go.

Traps freshly bated w/ P.B.

Pics on-line soon. (Rick if you read this, put 'em up and I'll post a link)

-Dr. J

Posted by cjones at November 21, 2002 04:17 AM