M-I-C, See you little bastards in hell!

You know how cats sometimes do that thing where they fix their entire attention, nay, the whole of their being, on one completely unremarkable spot on the wall or carpet, every molecule making up their furry be-whiskered selves orienting towards this arbitrary bit of nothing interesting as if the deepest puzzles of the universe will be sussed out and made knowable to their wee feline brains if only they stare hard enough? That thing? That thing they also sometimes do when you're home alone and your husband is out of town for a week and you're afraid of ghosts and you know someone once died in your building but no one will tell you in which unit so you're sure it's yours and you've read that cats can see things that humans can't (like dead people) and here's your little furball staring very intently just over your left shoulder as you sit on the couch alone at night and then, suddenly, in reaction to no stimulus you can perceive except did you just feel the merest brush of an icy hand on the back of your neck, the cat lays its ears back and runs away as if the deceased former occupant of your living room was hot on their striped tail. Yeah, that thing they do? Well, sometimes that has less to do with the restless souls of former tenents and more to do with unexpected housemates of the tiny, squeaky, flea-bearing, non-rent paying variety. Having experienced both causes for this most troubling of kitty cat behavior, I have to say that I think I vastly prefer being scared out of my pajamas to dealing with the damn mice now making themselves at home in my walls and under my dishwasher. Ghosts I can handle...well, sort of, if by "handle" I mean turn on every light in the house, make a fortified enclosure out of couch cushions, pull a blanket up over my head, refuse to come out until my bladder is so full I am in serious danger of pissing in my Powerpuff Girl underpants, and pray for dawn or rescue, then yeah, I can handle the fuck out of some ghosts! Mice, on the other hand, rob me of my dignity.

The cats, having alerted me to the presence of the miniscule freeloaders, seem to feel that their work is done. Last night during a quick intermission between episodes of The Tick while I was in the hall bathroom (with the door open because I'm a heathen and there wasn't anyone in the house I hadn't married or birthed so you can just refrain from judging there Judgy McJudgerson), a bit of movement caught my eye. Lo, it was the bold scampering of a very brazen little mouse explorer, who, having squeezed his uninvited self out of the vent under the dishwasher, scurried across the vast open expanse of our kitchen, gone past the first cat on the left and straight down the hall, and, upon hearing that we bought a new bed had decided to upgrade to posher digs than the wadded up appliance insulation in which he'd previously been nesting, so was making his way, in the least furtive fashion I have ever witnessed a mouse move, straight for our bedroom. Shocked at the complete disdain with which our home, our personal space, and our possession of not one, but two, natural mouse predators were being treated, I completed my necessary business and schemed up a little scheme to inform Mr. Cheeky O'Mouseypants that, while he may have been safe in his cozy little den beneath the Potscrubber 600, there was no sanctuary to be found in my bedroom! I hied me hence to the living room, snapped, "mouse in our bedroom" at Mr. G, scooped up the first cat I found (Velcro, wily hunter of flies and slayer of spiders), and, clutching my bemused savior to my bossom, marched off to the bedroom with the glint of oncoming victory in my eyes (victory doesn't actually smell like napalm in the morning, in fact, it smells a bit more like whiskey and vermouth in the late afternoon). I closed the door behind the cat and me and looked around for my miniature nemesis. Velcro blinked a few times and commenced with some important paw washing. I spotted our prey, his pointed snout poking out from behind the curtains, the look on his face clearly stating that he felt the color scheme in this room suited him ever so much more than the drab dust and wood tones to be found beneath the cabinetry in the kitchen. I pointed him out to the cat. She ignored me. I picked up the cat and set her in front of the spot where the mouse head had just been. Velcro did some more blinking and shed apathetically. I could only hope that she simply didn't want to embarass her clumsy human friend with a display of shocking acrobatics and graceful violence. Admiring her discretion and tact, I withdrew, bracing myself to return to a grisly display of battle trophies and some understandable kittenish smugness. I listened for a while but heard no sounds of struggle. For good measure I found Jet and tossed him in as backup, or competition, or something, just kill the damn thing already! Mr. G came to listen. He said he heard a scream; I thought, "Excelsior! Score one for the home team!" I was deeply disappointed, though, when we went in to check and Jet was staring at the bookshelves, Velcro was laying on her side by my dresser, and the mouse ran over my foot and under the bed. Noble descendants of tigers, my lily-white ass! Useless kibble moochers, I say! I firmly believe that what was heard was not a shriek of pain and fear, but a mousely taunting as our unwelcome new housemate hurled his scorn and tiny defiance into the face of our worthless and not as carnivorous as advertised furbags. I felt shame on Jet's and Velcro's behalf (behalves?), since they seemed quite disinclined to feel properly mortified at their own disgraceful performance, or complete lack thereof.

What makes this all the more unsatisfactory is that this is all after a vist from an exterminator. Glue traps lay empty under the sink, behind the various cleaning products, and surrounded by a mocking little rock garden of mouse turds. Our landlord came over this afternoon, and after much disarranging of large outdated dish cleaning equipment, some plans have been set in motion, further strategies have been laid, and I fear that I can't give any more detail than that lest that information fall into disarmingly cute, but undoubtedly nefarious, diminutive enemy hands. If I don't update within a week, know that the mice have won.