Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Ah, New York City life

You don't expect any surprises when you take your morning pee, least of all the one I got this morning. I'm standing over the bowl when I see something move out of the corner of my eye --

"OH! Shit!"

I cut it off mid-stream and closed the door behind me. Because there in the bottom of our tub, standing on its hind feet, was... a mouse.

I told Yvonne what prompted my outburst and saw the look of terror on her face I expected, probably the same one I had. I saw her glance at the bathroom door, and blurted out: "Don't go near it! You'll freak out!"

We both needed to shower, though, so we couldn't just wait this thing out. We quickly put our heads together, and came up with three possible courses of action:

1. Grab a trash bag, throw it over the mouse extraordinary rendition style, scoop him up and toss him down the garbage chute.
2. Drown it.
3. "I could shoot it with a rubberband, and try to get a good head shot."

For some reason, we didn't explore that last option any further, and decided Plan 1 was our best bet.

So I put on rubber dishwashing gloves, grabbed a new garbage bag and went in.

The first attempt to bag it was a pretty feeble swipe. I didn't want to get too close lest it run up by arms or leap onto my junk or something, and it easily jumped out of range. Still, seeing him on the run was helpful, because it was clear the mouse couldn't get out of the tub on his own. (I'm guessing he climbed the shower curtain to get in, but he obviously couldn't scale the tub to get back out, poor guy.)

On try number two, I snapped open the bag some more, gathered my courage and draped the opening over the mouse. And he walked right in! I scooped it up and held fast onto the top -- and then I could feel him scrambling around in the bag. (!!!) I couldn't open the front door because that would mean taking a hand off the open end of the bag so I called out to Yvonne: "Bring me some shorts!" She came out of the bedroom and I stepped into a pair of gym shorts. She threw the door open and we ran down the hall to the garbage chute.

I could feel it scampering more furiously now, so I hit it against the wall to stun it, but that only riled it up more. I tried it again, with a little more force this time -- I can't hurt an animal! -- then once more, and by that time Yvonne had the chute open.

In it went.


Whew.

What a way to start the morning.

8 comments:

Peter said...

wow, what an exciting way to start your day! I know Jen would love to hear this one since she loves mice so much. From my experience, I'm surprised it survived the smack against the wall.
When Jen and I first moved into our house, she calls me at work screaming(me thinking something bad happened) She tells me "we have to move out, I just saw a mouse!" I was actually relieved that's all it was. Since then, I've become quite the mouse catcher.

Squeen said...

It's like that old Folgers jingle: "The best part of waking up is a rodent in your tub!"

Willy The Prince said...

Poor little mouse! Glad you didn't get rabies.

Ara said...

Who scrubbed the tub before you both showered?

Squeen said...

I did. And yes, the mouse had taken a fresh deuce.

Susan said...

Hilarious!! Some people just have all the fun. At least you have a garbage chute. Dad would have had to hurl it over the wall into the next neighborhood -- and it still might have returned!

Anonymous said...

A big game hunter like you should lead safaries to Africa.
You should have kept it and have it mounted.

kunka. said...

Why do I have a feeling your reaction was similar to "We gotta get outta here!!"

You should write stuff for a living. Funny story.