And all through the house …
[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous Christmas Eve post.]
… a creature was stirring.
On Christmas Eve I was expecting a visit from my son, who was flying in as a rare treat. I had tidied up, and was putting on the finishing touches while waiting for him to arrive from the airport. As I was poised at the top of the staircase on my way down from the second floor, I saw a movement on one of the lower steps.
A dark shape. A small dark shape—very still, and then in motion again. With tiny little ears, and a long tail.
A mouse. Very much stirring.
I let out a shriek, like in the cartoons. Yes, I know that mice do not hurt people. But yes, they give me the willies when they startle me and scurry around—like—mice. The few times when this has happened before, they’ve always sought the little opening from whence they’d come and scurried away, hardly ever to be seen again.
But this mouse seemed to be lost and disoriented. Maybe because it was almost midnight on Christmas Eve, and no creature was supposed to be stirring. In the midst of my unreasonable fear was a sort of amusement. What was it doing here, this evening of all evenings?
The mouse was still on the staircase landing, and although I assumed that somehow it had managed to climb the three stairs to where it was, it appeared to be perplexed about how to get up or down from there. I watched it from what I considered a safe distance at the top of the stairs, and I could see it moving back and forth, back and forth, first towards the wall and then towards the edge of the step, but it could not seem to get the courage to make a break for it.
What did I do? I called my son and asked how far away he was. Forty-five minutes. And then I settled in, not for a long winter’s nap but for a long viewing from a good vantage point to monitor the mouse’s position till my son would arrive. For the moment, the mouse seemed quite well-contained on the stairs, but I didn’t trust that—and sure enough, slowly but surely, with many fits and starts, it managed to get back down those three stairs to the ground floor.
Now, it turns out that watching a mouse is actually sort of interesting. This one darted from stair-bottom to hall to bathroom to bedroom and back again (my place is built upside-down, with the bedroom and bathroom downstairs and living room and kitchen upstairs). I had a special horror of the mouse being in the bedroom—so after its one foray into the bedroom for five minutes and then out again, I slammed the bedroom door shut and placed a thick towel to block the crack at the bottom. The towel seemed to act as an effective barrier, like a small mountain range, and the mouse didn’t venture into that room again.
But back and forth it went—along the wall in the hall, into the bathroom, up a few stairs and then back down them again. I noticed that it seemed to get smarter and smarter; each time it climbed the stairs it was better at it, until it seemed as though it had been doing this all its little life.
And then by trial and error it found the molding along the side of the stairs, which then acted as a sort of ramp by which the mouse could easily climb all the way to the top. This filled me with dread. I was conceding the downstairs for now, but the upstairs was my territory! But what to do? That molding-ramp made it so easy; the mouse was coming up in a determined sort of way, till I could look into its beady little eyes and it could look into mine. I let out another involuntary yelp, stamping my feet and clapping my hands, trying to make enough noise to frighten it off.
I looked and sounded completely and utterly ridiculous.
And yet it was effective; the little thing stopped in its tracks, then turned and went back downstairs again, to my great relief. Then a few minutes later it came up the ramp-molding again, and I re-enacted the same stupid pantomime I had before. The mouse kept coming—up up up, light and fleet of foot, relentless and implacable. I actually thought of throwing something at it to head it off—perhaps my shoe, like Clara in “The Nutcracker.” But oh, for a platoon of tin soldiers like hers! (I’ve cued up this video to start at the right spot, although it’s mistitled because these are not meant to be rats, they’re mice):
But alas, we were alone, just the two of us, mousie and me. And I didn’t really want to hurt it, which I thought might happen if I threw my shoe, so I reached for a pillow—and at that moment I heard the key turn in the lock and my son walked in.
I’m always happy to see him, but perhaps never so happy as this time, as I stood at the top of the stairs in a semi-crouch, clutching a small pillow and making silly-yet-hopefully-scary noises at a mouse that was climbing a molding-ramp on the edge of the staircase.
My son managed to keep his disdain under control long enough to catch the mouse in a plastic container and escort it outside to be released, but not before we took a photo though the plastic. Yes, the mouse is kind of cute. But no, I don’t want him in my house, not on Christmas Eve or any other time.
The Mouse just wanted some warmth, and Christmas Cheer.
Recently what I presume is a Youtube AI has presented me with a number of ads for various major properties—mansions, ancient houses, and estates, all over the world–for sale.
Apparently, little does Youtube know of my financial resources, which would not be up to such purchases.
However, along with these ads came another interesting video, this one laying out all of the expenses which would come with such properties, and, it seems that the killer wouldn’t necessarily be the initial purchase price but, rather, the costs–taxes, insurance, staffing, upkeep, maintenance and repairs–which were necessitated by owning and maintaining a property of such magnitude.
One of the interesting things which this video pointed out was that most of the equipment and furnishings in such properties were very high end, and often custom items, whose repair or replacement would be much more expensive than those of an ordinary house.
This video also didn’t discuss staffing, but I’m assuming that maintaining such properties in tip-top condition would require a number of full time employees, not to mention a security staff to maintain both your privacy and your security.
All of this in addition, of course, to the lawyers and financial advisors which that level of wealth would require.
So, depending on the size of the property, it might require some form of “Upstairs Downstairs” type of–nowadays–very expensive staffing.
He is pretty cute. One time when I was at our house in NC with my father, I was in bed, lights were still on and a mouse ran across my bedroom floor. At first, I freaked (silently). Then I realized, he/she, too, was awfully cute. I actually named it. I told my father and first thing in morning he called the exterminator. I asked, “Do you have to?” I was surprised at how much it upset me. I can’t remember but I’m hoping he just took it and released it outside. Another time I was here by myself. I kept the door to the deck open so my dog could go do her thing outside. Over 2 weeks, three different times opossums came into the house. That really sent me over the edge. I thought rabies (later I remembered they are marsupials). I actually Googled and found out it’s not uncommon. They don’t travel in packs, but rather are loners. And there were stories on Google of people this had happened to. Mice are cute. Opossums not so much! Got someone on the mountain here to capture them and release them. I begged them not near my house. I suspect they walked outside and let them go right into the woods very close to house. Happy trails to those opossums! The deck door was closed and remained so for some time.
I enjoy reading the “annual posts” no matter how many times I’ve seen them before.
It’s like having the family sit around and retell old stories, and asking each other “do you remember?” the fun, and funny, times we’ve shared.
Thanks for another wonderful year of news, analysis, commentary, and all the not-news posts that make this the best hangout on the Web.
And God bless us, every one!
Some funny signs to lighten the mood.*
* See https://www.aol.com/finance/19-more-funny-signs-lit-130012118.html
Jim Semivan, a former long time high level career CIA officer, is an experienced, very well informed, articulate, and intelligent individual, with a lot of very high level government contacts and, he is also an “Experiencer.”
Here is what he understands about the “Indigestible” nature of the truth about NHIs.*
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7_XKTklZSw
And here are recent statements by Dr. Jacques Vallee–a preeminent UFO researcher who has been studying this phenomenon for 60 some years, who says that he is aware that, some 20 years ago, researchers had made contact with a non-human entity, and were able to have continued communication with it. **
(With all of the books he has written and all of the interviews and TV appearances he has made over the decades, I wonder if Vallee has decided to drop this information at this particular time because of his advancing age?)
** See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdLAW5DYafo
A broom works just fine in corralling a mouse.
Some time ago in my home I chased a mouse from the second floor down to the basement and back up to the first floor, where I was able to corner the critter; but the mouse did not give up.
It made several attempts to get by me when cornered , and each time I held it off with the broom. Finally I was able to swat the mouse with the broom and it rendered the mouse unconscious, at which point I took it outside – still unconscious (that is, the mouse was unconscious, not me).
This entire mouse chase and capture event lasted about 30 minutes.
I actually felt like I was in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, but unlike the cartoon, I, the “Tom” character, prevailed.
Great story, Neo. Thank you.
I actually had a Christmas mouse munching on some interior part of a wall by the kitchen. I’d caught one on the other side of the refrigerator last week and thought that might be the end of it, but apparently not.
I had an amusing encounter with a mouse at my mother’s house some 30 years ago. My mother called and told me that she had a mouse in her house and wanted my help in catching it. My first response to this was to point out that she had 2 dachshunds and why were they not dealing with the mouse? Mom said the mouse only came out when her dogs were asleep. How then did she propose we catch this intruding rodent? Mom told me that she thought that if we laid out a trail of bits of cheese from where the mouse usually scurried along the base of a wall in the living room leading to a small basket with another piece of cheese in it on the floor by my feet the mouse would follow the cheese trail to the basket and climb in. Then I could put my hand over the opening of the basket, pick it up and take the basket with the mouse outside and let it go.
I was highly skeptical o this plan. I told my mother there was no way this was going to work (I thought it sounded like something the Coyote would come up with to catch the Roadrunner). However, being a dutiful son, I agreed to come over to her house that evening and give it a try. I laid out the trail of cheese bits across the floor and the little basket by my feet. Mom and I were sitting on the couch watching TV. Her dachshunds were curled up contently snoozing on the couch between us.
Then the mouse appeared, scurrying along the base board. To my everlasting astonishment Mom’s plan worked perfectly. The mouse stopped at the first bit of cheese. Then it followed the trail of cheese to the basket and climbed in. I reached down and put my hand over the opening to hold it in the basket (the dogs stayed sound asleep during all this by the way). I picked up the basket and carried it outside. There I let the mouse go (together with the last chunk of cheese).
Personally, I think mice are cute. However, their habits of gnawing and leaving droppings everywhere mean I do not want them in the house.