AHHH!!!

One of the favorite stories from the "when we were growing up" years that Roy's siblings talk about goes as follows: they were living in Izmir, Turkey and all four kids were still at home. They had a nice house with a big kitchen and their family wasn't the only ones who enjoyed that kitchen. The rats did too. On one particularly memorable day, Roy's mom armed each kid with a broom, assigned them each a doorway or major appliance to block and had Roy, the baby of the family, stand on top of the kitchen shouting directions and orders. Without going into gruesome details, I'll sum up the story by saying that after playing a little broom hockey, the rats no longer shared their kitchen.

That story is one that will probably never get old because everyone laughs so hard when they tell it. And of course everyone also remembers the reactions of siblings and their mother, which always makes for a funnier story.

Last week, we had our own kitchen invasion and, because of his Izmir experience, Roy knew exactly what to do. We set up a tunnel of big toys, boxes, the ironing board, etc leading from the oven hiding place to the back door. After a little shaking of the oven, the little mouse (okay, so it's not a rat or a family of rats, but still disturbing) headed for the door, only flying into a few obstacles. Feeling a bit smug, we thought we'd solved that problem quickly and easily and without losing more than a granola bar and bag of rice to a hungry critter.

Then this morning at 6:37, I heard Roy calling my name and saying he needed me. I ran out from bed, totally freaked out because he sounded stressed and worried. I found him in the kitchen with another tunnel, this time leading from the laundry room to the back door. This time, he had chased the mouse from the front room, away from the bathroom and bedrooms (thank you!), out from under the fridge, and back into the laundry room. We still haven't gotten the mouse out yet, but heard lots of scurrying and think he may have escaped down the tiny hole next to the pipe by the washer. So as soon as Abby gets up, we're making a little trip to Walmart to pick up some supplies.

Moral of the Story: Although years later, a story about playing broom hockey with rats may make an entire gathering of people laugh at Thanksgiving dinner, you may have to at least partially relive your experience. Thank goodness Abby has slept through both mouse-capades, otherwise I'm sure we would have had a much more "exciting" and complicated time of it!