Splish Splash

We have a mouse in the house. Correction: We had a mouse in the house. Although I am glad that our uninvited guest is gone, I wish he had chosen a less dramatic exit.

About a week ago, we had a terrible rain storm. It rained buckets all day long and into the night. The ceiling in the boys' room had leaked in the past, and despite the fact that our 75-year-old, spry yet scarecrow-built landlord climbed up on the roof during a tornado warning to fix the leak a few weeks ago, I still had my ears open for that dreaded dripping sound. (Stick with me... we'll get to the mouse.)

I went to sleep almost immediately upon my head hitting the pillow that night, but was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of water. In my semi-conscious state, I assumed it was the boys' ceiling and tried to will it to stop so that I wouldn't have to climb out of bed and find a bucket. I slowly entered a more awake state and realized that the sound was awfully loud to be water dripping in the boys' room. The sound would have to travel down the hall and through two closed doors. Plus, the sound of the furnace muffled much of the sound outside the room.

Now, I was awake (but still refusing to open my eyes). What could it be? I realized the sound was coming from around Frodo's side of the bed. That corner of the room is where the addition containing the master bedroom meets the main part of the house. Many homes in the South, including ours (I have no idea why) do not have rain gutters, so I concluded that water must be running down the joint in the roof and splashing into a pool of water on the ground outside. Yes, that had to be it. I settled in and tried to go back to sleep.

But it sounds awfully loud to be coming from outside. Maybe there's a leak in our ceiling?! I was now completely awake - eyes open and everything - but I couldn't see in the dark. I grabbed my reading light (the kids keep wandering off with my in-case-of-emergency flashlights) and crept to Frodo's side of the bed. When I got to the nightstand, I realized that the sound was coming from the nightstand and illuminated the surface and found this:



Apparently, our uninvited guest had climbed the nightstand and Frodo's pile of reading material in search of a drink and got a little more than he bargained for.

So, we are now mouseless (for now) and our mouser (who lives outside because of Frodo's allergies) required a little less breakfast than usual the morning after our great adventure.