Thursday, January 03, 2008

The only thing missing is the tiny telephone booth

Before I get started on today's post, I had two things that I wanted to mention.

First, Doug the Intern's father passed away unexpectedly last night, they are thinking he had a heart attack. Doug and his family are truly wonderful people and it is heartbreaking to think that he has lost his dad. I spent most of this afternoon crying in my office - it's not like you're ever prepared to lose someone you love, but it just seems so unfair for them.

So Doug, my thoughts are with you and your family.

Then, the big news. Baby Finley is here! I don't have any details yet, but my nephew's wife ended up having the baby this afternoon. Reports are that Finley is one beautiful little girl. Congratulations to them, and I can't wait to get my Finley Fix in soon!

The other thing about this is now this makes me a great aunt. Great. Aunt.

Egads.

*****

The saga of the mice continues. Apparently they have discovered our pantry, because on New Year's Day I discovered that they had eaten half of a Family-Size bag of Lay's Barbeque potato chips. Half a bag, people. And the only evidence I had was one small piece of chip that had fallen onto the top of a jar. They had created the tiniest hole in the bag I have ever seen.

So yesterday morning, I went into the pantry again to get a juice box and discovered that they had eaten a third of a bar of Ghiardelli baking chocolate.

This means war. Have all the potato chips you want, but start fucking with my chocolate and I get nasty.

I went on to Target yesterday to purchase another $200 in Tupperware containers in order to encapsulate all food in our pantry. Anything that isn't in a jar, can, or bottle is now in a closable bin. Not very attractive and kind of a pain in the ass to get something to eat, but at least now I don't have to worry about going to eat something and finding little gnawed marks all over it. Bleh.

At this point, Joey had gotten the flashlight out and was searching through the kitchen and laundry room to try and figure out how they are getting into the house. What we discovered was that there is a sizable hole where the electrical stub-in is for our stove. Like big enough for about ten mice to fit through. So Joey got some caulk, and in his attempt to find something sturdy to stop up the hole with before caulking it up, he took some of Monkey Man's kitchen windowsill rock collection and stuffed them in the hole. Maybe not the most kosher method to fill in the gap, but at least we knew that the mice couldn't eat the rocks. Right? So after stuffing the rocks in there, Joey caulked the ever-loving shit out of the hole. I mean like used a whole entire tube of caulk in there.

Allrighty then. It seemed like this was going to do the trick. We caulked a few smaller areas that didn't seem to be problems but figured hey - while we're already making a huge mess let's just finish it up right! And we settled in for the night.

This morning I went in the pantry to get a Capri Sun for Monkey Man's backpack. Saw two mouse droppings on the floor. And this really odd stuff all over the tops of two of the Tupperware containers...

Tufts of mouse fur. Lots of it. Like the mouse had spontaneously combusted in our pantry.

So we pulled out the drawer under the stove to check the hole and guess what we found?

They had busted through the rocks and caulk. And I'm thinking that the effort that they put in pretty much almost made the mice bald.

All I can say is these are some damn determined mice. Or as Maven put it this morning, they are almost like Super Mice! All I need to do is get them some little superhero outfits and some miniature telephone booths to change in.

The mice are killing me slowly. If I could just have one day where I'm not disinfecting the hell out of everything in my kitchen, I'd be ecstatically happy.

*****

GO HOKIES!!!!

Have a great Friday, y'all. I'm off to watch the Hokies play.

6 comments:

Mitzi Green said...

gross gross GROSS!!!! and yes, rodents will stop at nothing. when i was in high school, we had an ROUS. i'm not sure how we discovered it, but when we noticed towels missing from the pile next to the washing machine, my dad investigated and found a small hole in the drywall on the stairs--with the corner of a towel sticking out. he pulled 3 full-size bath towels out of that hole, along with a bunch of rat debris. ick. put out poison--rat ate it. put out soda--rat drank it. he finally cornered the rat one night behind the dryer and shot it with the pellet gun they used on the neighbors' dogs. and i think he had to shoot it more than once. blech.

Tanaya said...

Try that "Great Stuff" spray in insulation for the hole. Spider and rodent proof. And about those tupperware containers...I hate to break it to you, but I have personally seen evidence of the little bastards getting into those, as well. In particular, an itsy bitsy line of chew marks all around the top of a rubbermaid lid. At some point, the mouse gave up and gnawed through the less tough plastic bowl part on his way to a Cheeto bonanza.

Unknown said...

Sorry I have been MIA, but HAPPY NEW YEAR and CONGRATS AUNTIE!!!

Lori said...

I am Joansy's friend and co-Ranch owner. We had mice in our house and the Mouse Mover from Sharper Image has worked at home. We did traps, all sorts of disgusting things before we tried it. We have one at the ranch too and it's not quite as successful (less but not all evidence gone) but maybe those are ranch super mice, however at home - not one mouse since. (knock on the wood in my pantry). Good luck, I hate those little f'ers.

Karen said...

Aww, congrats on being a Great Auntie.

Sorry about the rodents. Our cat used to bring them in. We found a dead one under our bed once - ugh, I get the shivers just thinking of it.

joansy said...

Glad to see that Lori chimed in as I know she's had good luck with the electronic gadgets. We've only had a few mice at our trailer at the ranch - I think it's been pure luck. We did have one who made a nice home with insulation and tp in our oven, but then bit the dust when he got stuck in the sink. Gross. Since then we've used some kind of little blue pellets of poison, but we don't have pets. Anyway, good luck with the critters.

PS I got your e-mail but it's on my work computer and I can't find your e-mail address. Will you pretty please write to me again so I can respond (with glee, of course) :)