Mouse Update

Last night I had dreams about reptiles invading our house. It was a new kind of snake. (MOM, you may not want to read this part!) They were fat like a toad but elongated like a snake. And then there were baby snakes, too, and in my dream they were baby rattlers! So the baby rattlers were attacking the toad-like snakes. And I had to walk through them, barefoot! And of course it wouldn't even be a decent nightmare unless I walked on one -- or two. It was just so ultra-creepy, even now my bare feet tingle with the memory of how it felt to step on a dream snake! And to know at any second one could and probably would lunge at me.

And I figure two things contributed to this nightmare. One, I tried to beat Smoochy into the bedroom last night because if she gets in before me, she hides, and I have to find her and put her out before I go to sleep or she wail at the closed door until I do. So as were were hot-stepping towards the door, I accidentally stepped on her tail. Her long, slinky tail. The arch of my foot was on it so it didn't hurt her, but it gave me a creepy feeling to feel that living tube undefoot. And then, just before I fell asleep, the memory of that mouse climbing my bedspread intruded upon my fatigued brain.

So you see, having a mouse invade our house really did traumatize me some. However, we have not seen it since the last sighting prompted us to stuff steel wool in the cable-holes. A muffin accidentally left out overnight bore no tell-tale toothmarks, nor did the one piece of popcorn on the floor suspiciously disappear. So maybe...we scared it away? The mouse traps remain empty. But like the unseen shark that circles the sandbars, or the folded but unsleeping bat that waits in the dark at the top of the attic, I can feel its presence somewhere. Waiting.