It's A Mousey!!

If you have cats and you've ever had a mouse running loose inside, you understand that it's chaos.  Just such an incidence occurred at my mom's house over Christmas break. With Tas home with me at the time, this meant there were four cats around.  The two girl cats are the main hunters, and Nolly, being younger and somewhat more svelte, is the real pro.

The Enemy

One morning I woke up to Stephanie telling me to get up and help her save the mouse the cats had.  Nolly was trying to trap it as it ran back and forth between the cabinets and the corner with the back door.  Tas sat watching nearby, interested but unwilling to help.  My sister and I felt the need to save the cute little mouse, so we took over for the cat.  If you weren't sure, the best way to trap a mouse is with a bowl.

 

 This particular mouse, however, was quite speedy.  We chased it back and forth before we finally got it cornered.  Now was my time to shine!!

Nolly kept the mouse in the corner, and I snapped the bowl down over it!  Success!!  But how to get it outside?  I grabbed the nearest flat, sturdy object, which happened to be a binder, and scooped the mouse up.  He was mine!  Muahahaha!

There was only one problem.  I hadn't noticed that the binder was...bent.  That's right, bent!  This unfortunate conformation meant that there was a gap between the binder and the bowl.  That's right, a gap!  That sneaky little mouse found that sneaky little gap and went right ahead and sneakyed himself out!

 

 

All was lost.  He ran to the cabinets and, despite Stephanie's efforts, disappeared into some tiny, unseen, mouse-escape-vortex.  That was it.  He was gone.  Nowhere to be found.  In an effort to save the mouse we actually probably caused it to die slowly and painfully from cat inflicted internal wounds. 

The moral of this story?  If there's a mouse around, just let your cats deal with it.  They will do a much better job than you will.