A Mousican Stand-off

Sunday morning started for me bright and early at 5:30, when I woke up with what I can only assume is a pinched nerve in my right hip. Hubby had just come to bed and when his minor settling-in movements made me wince, I came to the conclusion that I needed to get up and take some morphine.

I decided to settle for Advil and aspirin, since morphine would require me robbing a hospital dispensary at gunpoint, and who has that kind of energy at such an early hour? So, after taking just shy of overdose proportions ummm handfuls some pills, I settled into the couch hoping to A: move in such a way that I un-pinched the nerve B: not cry before the pain killers kicked in and C: fall back asleep very, very soon. I turned on the TV and set the sleep timer, waiting for my body to stop shriek-yelling at me and retreat once again into something resembling God, if you love me make it a coma that lasts till this nerve is un-pinched sleep.

Ninety minutes later, I was still awake and decided to give up the unattainable brass-ring of sleep. I got up to make coffee, took as many as I dare take without winding up in an ambulance one more of each pain killer and retreated back to the couch to bounce between watching news, morning programs and the innumerable preacher programs available on early morning Sunday television, when I heard a noise in the kitchen. I dismissed it as auditory delusions stemming from too much Advil and aspirin and too little sleep. Until a few minutes later, when I saw it running around on my kitchen counter...

A Mouse

I crept as quietly as... well, a mouse... into the kitchen, scaring the ObviouslyDiseaseRiddenCauseIt'sAMother BleepinRodentForShitSake mouse back around the entire length of the counter; weaving around the vase and the candlesticks, past the sponge I wash dishes with burn it!, behind the dishtowels burn them too! No wait, they're new, OK, wash them in bleach until they're nearly disintegrated, and the toaster and the cooking utensil holder and the blender into the corner behind the crock pot bleach counter until the fumes in the house are so strong we have to go to a hotel for a week!.

I wait in the middle of the kitchen floor trying to decide what to do. I've had two and a half hours of sleep and I'm pre-coffee and in pain, but I am adrenaline-wide-ass-awake. After a millenium a few minutes of waiting, I'm starting to wonder if there's some sort of under-wallpaper hole in the corner that I was unaware of, cause Mister Mousy hasn't emerged beyond said crock pot corner to run behind the stove, which is where I, were I a mouse, would go to escape.

So I move the crock pot.

And Mister Mousy takes this as his cue to run back up the counter, behind the blender, past the cooking utensil holder and possibly the toaster, but the trail has gone cold. What the hell do I do? My brain starts no-sleep-no-coffee-adrenaline-fueled thinking; I may have an inkling of where to find a mousetrap, but if I go get it and set it the little fucker will get away and the munchkin could find it when he wakes up and get hurt... I'll have to risk moving the utensil holder to extract the butcher's knife. I'll stab the offending intruder and once impaled on my butcher's knife, I'll fling the vanquished beast out to the what the hell are we keeping you for you didn't catch the effing mouse outdoor cats. Yeah. And that way I won't wake up the hubby or the munchkin. I've already gotta bleach the counter, what's a little Mister Mousy blood to clean up?

So I've got my game plan, and I make my move for the knife. No Mister Mousy behind the utensil holder ~ knife acquired without incident... Now I'm ready! I move the toaster quickly, half-expecting the little fucker to charge me. Instead I see the tail poking out from underneath the toaster damn it now I need a new toaster too. So I quickly poke-stab at it's hind end with the tip of the knife in the same kind of motion one makes when they get the brilliant idea to pierce their own ears, IE: with no real conviction or success. It moves... barely. I try again with equal non-results. But now I'm emboldened! So I whip the toaster across the counter so fast that Mister Mousy is fully exposed.

And he just stares at me like he's working the Jedi Mind Trick and I, big 'ole bad-ass with my butcher's knife that I am, am totally having a Mexican stand-off with a fucking mouse at not-even-8-o'clock-on-Sunday-morning. And somehow... some incredible are-you-kidding-me way, I find myself just watching, stock still, as Mister Mousy turns tail and runs back down the counter past the sponge that needs to be burned and candle sticks and the vase and disappears from view altogether.

And it's three hours later, and I still haven't slept have absolutely no idea where he went, but I keep checking on the munchkin, and Mister Mousy is not in the munchkin's bed threatening to chew off his face if I don't acquiesce to a list of food and territory demands. But I swear, those lazy-ass outdoor cats are going on half-rations until Mister Jedi Mousy is apprehended and prosecuted to the highest extent of Texas law; and y'all know what that means... death penalty.

You're goin' down, Mister Jedi Mousy. I am Darth Aria.