Twitch

The other day Mr SDS remarks that he’s experienced a funny sensation in bed the night before.  (Stop it…)   It was troubling him.  He describes it: “like a tickly feeling that started by my arm and then all of a sudden I felt it down my leg”.

“Probably just a nerve or something.  Or you know when you get an itch and it sort of spreads?” I suggest.

“Yeah, but it was just odd because it was, like, really fast.  Weird.”

Anyway, that was that.   I check the bed for spiders (possibly squashed) before getting in next night –  but thankfully no trace. 

A few evenings later I go into the kitchen to get a glass of water, when suddenly something small and dark scoots across the floor in front of me, over my foot and disappears under the washing machine.  Not a spider.  It has a tail.  And thus we discover that we have a mouse in the house. 

The following evening we’re assuming (hoping) the mouse has gone back out by whatever route it came in. We live in the country with all sorts of creatures frequenting the garden, so no big deal.  We haven’t heard or seen it since the night before and we’ve been careful not to leave any food/crumbs about.   I can’t see any tiny droppings on the floor and I’m well-versed in small mammal excreta (it could be my specialist subject on Mastermind, I can identify hedgehog poo at twenty paces). All seems quiet.

I’ll cut to the chase, literally - we are wrong about the mouse going back out.  Suddenly, god knows how, it's upstairs in Mr SDS’ little office room, it runs under his desk, disappears.  Ten minutes later, there’s a mouse in the kitchen… well, a tail hanging down behind an upper cupboard.  Its owner then makes a break for it across the worktop and down behind the fridge (but not before squatting briefly on the bread bin with a defiant stare).  Then back under the washing machine….  disappears.   Five minutes later there’s a mouse running around my workspace, here in the living room, where I'm typing this.  We try to catch it under a plastic bowl but it goes behind the bookcase and… disappears.

Oh no!  We don't just have a mouse in the house, I surmise - we have mice in the hice!

Well, I’m fond of all things small and wild with multiple legs and that includes mice, so I’m not standing on a chair shrieking or anything like that.  I do remember a long while ago, I was working in a huge office full of mostly men, many of whom were hairy-arsed seafarers (I can’t vouch for the hairy bits but I base the judgement on their beards), they’d  been employed as engineers, officers and Captains on massive international oil tankers, travelling the world for months on end, encountering pirates and tropical storms, weevils in their biscuits and all sorts.  One afternoon someone noticed a baby field mouse running across the large open-plan office floor.   All those rufty-tufty middle-aged mariners around and yet it was the new recruit, a 28-year old female admin assistant, who calmly knelt down and caught the panicky rodent in her hands.  (I simply cupped them around it gently and took it outside...)

So I’m fond of all things small and wild - hairy-arsed, even - but I’m concerned about how to deal with several mice running around our tiny home with all its quirky corners; I have visions of an infestation.  

I’ll cut past the chase now…the chasing bit was futile.  We bought a humane trap for £3.99 and left a piece of my favourite Tesco 74% cocoa dark chocolate inside as bait (the sacrifices I make!)  About twenty minutes after laying it, it had caught a mouse.  She was dead cute – as in cute, but not dead (I couldn’t do dead).  All pink nose and twitchy whiskers - I could happily have kept her as a pet, but we took her out for a ride in the car and released her by torchlight a few miles away in a hedge – I'm sure she’ll be fine, she’s a country mouse.

What about all the other mice?  Well, it's been a few days now and it seems there are no other mice, just one extremely clever one (except when it comes to resisting chocolate) who managed to move unseen from room to room, upstairs and downstairs, via her incredible stealth, or possibly the power of invisibility.  

At this point it also dawns on us about the mysterious sensation under the duvet....