Confession Time

I lied.

I told everyone that we couldn't go to playgroup this morning because someone was coming to look at a leak in the basement.

That wasn't true.

We have a mouse.

Well, probably actually more than one.

But I am embarrassed to admit it.

I am already ashamed of and sensitive about my housekeeping skills.

But the appearance of mice makes me feel worse.

Of course, I've been told that the appearance of mice does not necessarily indicate dirtiness.

But I don't think I believe it. Because I know we are guilty of not being neat and clean all the time.

We first started noticing that soemthing was amiss when the cats quit coming upstairs in the evening and overnight. We would find them in the morning huddled in front of the cabinet underneath the sink. Obviously they could hear, see, or smell something that we couldn't. Now, we've had a mouse or two before, usually in the spring, usually one that we have trapped in the basement. It's an old house with no doubt lots of ways for mice to get in and it does get cold outside. So we looked for droppings, but didn't find any and so put down baking soda to see if we could find any tracks.

Well, two nights ago I found droppings and tracks. The cats' vigilance had paid off; we had been clued into our problem. But instead of our usual traps in the basement, we decided to call in our pest control people who came this morning. It's not a huge problem, he said, but it's good that we called them so they can seal up holes and the like before we have a real little colony. He also suggested we get rid of all the cardboard boxes in the basement so they can't nest. Now, most of you haven't been in my basement, thank goodness (and those of you who have made fun of my basement stairway have no idea what lies below; let's just say we value family time above organization) but I bet there are 100-plus cardboard boxes of books, holiday decorations, childhood memorabilia, clothes, housewares, and other crap down there. We would love to finish half the basement but there is a lot of stuff to move, and we haven't had the money or incentive to declutter. Until now. I think we'll be spending a lot of our evenings in the basement cleaning, transferring things to plastic bins, and hopefully not coming across too many mice.

And the kiddos. They of course are now aware of what's going on because I couldn't tell them it was a leak in the basement if the man and I were looking under the sink and behind my stove. At least the nice man said he was going to put the mice in a field instead of send them to their deaths in little wire traps (I know, I know, I'm a vegetarian and I should use humane methods but I want them out now and none of the humane methods--glue traps, peppermint oil, cohabitation--work). But Bud wants to name the mice. Sis wants to call ours the "mouse house" and feed them cheese. I tried to explain that real mice aren't all that nice and that they are eating our food, and then Bud got worried and asked if the mice had angry faces. Oh, boy. First the damned turkeys, and now the mice.

So there, I told you. The kids would have anyway so I might as well beat them to it. I'm coming clean. And am cleaning. I guess that makes it a win-win situation. Just, please, don't tease me.