Long Story Short ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mice and Birds and Beer, Oh My! We had a bird in our house on Sunday morning. It was not as big a deal as I would have thought. Especially since Bailey and I were safe in the bedroom with the door shut and all we could hear was an occasional loud TWEET. Snuggled under the covers was the perfect place to suffer the ordeal of the invading bird.
Professor K was the brave one that got up to confirm that the loud tweeting was, in fact, coming from the kitchen and NOT from outside. He came back in the room and announced, �We have a bird in the house�.
Hunter apparently sucks at eating birds, because it ended up taking some open doors and windows and a giant Miller Lite case to get the bird out. We probably wouldn't have even worried too much about it if we didn't have to leave for the day. The only reason we even tried to get the bird out was because its presence upset Bailey.
Last night we had a nice rainstorm and while Professor K took a cold shower I stood on the deck. It was really nice and warm with that sweet smelling summer rain. When I came back in the house he was on the bed watching the game with a mouse. We had a brief conversation while I stared at the mouse and then I pointed at it and asked, "What's that? Is that a mouse?"
And the very, very tiny gray mouse just chilled at the bottom corner of the bed, trying its best to be invisible to me, Professor K, and especially Bailey. We both sort of stood there helplessly, looking at our retarded dog and sound asleep cat. And the mouse. Suddenly the mouse scurried toward me and I, instinctively, screamed at a pitch heard only by dogs, slammed the bedroom door shut behind me, and did a strange kicking-up-my-feet dance of disgust. Then I said, "Uh, sorry about that". It was unavoidable, though. Since we already knew Hunter sucks at killing things and since Bailey was TOTALLY OBLIVIOUS to the situation we grabbed capture tools - the VERY SAME Miller Lite case that helped shoo out the bird and two spatulas for scooping. I held the spatulas, foolishly convincing myself that I would be able to get that close to the animal in question. We ventured back into the bedroom, The Man going in first. The mouse had disappeared. Shit. We started looking for him but it was impossible - he could have been anywhere. The mouse was a bummer but he was really small and we determined that it might be time to just say fuck it. We decided to name him just in case he became a regular in the house - Professor K chose "Scuffles". Shortly after the naming ceremony we saw Scuffles again. He crept out from underneath the bookcase and sat next to the laundry basket full of clean laundry. I pointed at him and Professor K and I realized that he had a broken foot - he was hobbling and moving slowly. I grabbed a broom, he grabbed the Miller Lite box, and when Scuffles got close enough we dropped the box on top of him to trap him. The plan was for me to GENTLY broom him into the box while the Professor lifted it. That was a good plan until he actually lifted the box and I saw the mouse start moving toward me. Inexplicably I screamed again, loudly, and started waving the broom around like a retard. Professor K was yelling, "There he is! Sweep him into the box!" Luckily I got my shit together and successfully broomed him into the box. Scuffles definitely had a broken little foot and we felt terrible for him. We took the box out to the front yard and let him go in the grass, but neither of us had high hopes for his survival. Upon reflection we determined that Scuffles was most likely a present from Hunter. He's been leaving worms around the house and Sunday's bird incident was his fault. The fact that Scuffles was injured seems telling. Anyway, we're HOPING that it's Hunter's fault and not a sudden infestation. Hunter has been banned from going outside for a few weeks. We can't keep cleaning up after his "friends". 10:47 a.m. - 2005-07-28 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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