Searching for the corpse

On Labor Day a mouse was seen on the glass and screened porch of the condo. The cats were quite interested but I shut them in and opened a screen door for little mousy to escape. Later I closed the screen and let the cats out onto the porch. I said I thought it had gone and besides it couldn't get over the tall step on the sliding glass doors. Both John and Eri said it could. I'm not sure where it went to hide but last night, as I sat on the bed to change clothes I saw it limp into the bathroom with Little Mister and Piper following. They weren't exactly chasing it, more like having an adventure, a scavenger hunt, if you will. What to do?

As a child I lived on the eighth floor of a well-built concrete building. All I needed was to see one tiny mouse in the hallway to give me the heebie jeebies every time I had to walk to the incinerator chute for years and years. On another note, our quarter mile square development did not allow dogs and we would run, screaming "rabies" anytime we saw a stray or lost dog. And if it were to approach us we would run away as fast as we could. These days I truly think you could keep a goat there and if it helped keep the grass in shape management would allow it.

As a younger woman, I remember calling my husband to breathlessly tell him in detail about the mouse playing hide and seek amongst the shoes by the door. I needed shoes to run away, but the mouse was there. What a quandary. I finally signed off when I realized it was voicemail and I wasn't talking to anyone. Eventually my walking partner came over and rescued me but my husband kept that voicemail for months to enjoy a good laugh. And my older daughter still reminds me of the time she had to dispose of a dead mouse I found under a phone book.  Over the years I taught myself not to look at the little half digested corpses the cats would leave behind. The big man could deal with it.

The first thing I did last night was to turn off the lights to hallway and bathroom and then close the door and sliding glass window in my room. I did have compassion for little mousy but it wasn't enough to save him or her. (Why do I always think of mice as he?) He really wasn't frightening on the porch or leading the parade, actually kind of cute. I put the fan on high and went to bed and made sure to put on slippers this morning before opening the door.

Where is the corpse? Where is the mutilated little body? Where is a live mouse hiding? O mouse, where art thou? There are chairs with skirts and a platform bed and all kinds of bags and piles of stuff to hide under. And yet I am calm. Really I am. If the mouse happens to run across my foot while I am writing...  all bets are off. As it stands there are only three options; it is dead and I will eventually find a corpse, or it found it's way out, or it is hiding somewhere and the cats will sniff him out. There is a fourth alternative, but it is so wacky I know there is a million to one chances it will never happen. That is if a brave person comes over searches all the nooks and crannies and finds the beastie for me. I can pay you in juicy, delicious, watermelon.

Sometimes I do miss being married. This is one of those times. (I am woman, hear me bleat.)