Not-so Mighty Mouse - It's long but well worth the read!!!

Yes real mice were hurt in this story and we make no apologies. (As told by Mike)

We had a very enjoyable camping experience for a week at a Chipman family reunion. We played lots of games (we played pinochle, pinochle, pool, pinochle, pool, baseball, pool, balderdash, ………….and pinochle.) The sleeping wasn’t so bad either as long as you ignore the night the mouse got into our cabin.

We slept in A-frame cabins that seemed quite nice. They were mostly clean except cabin 4 that had bat droppings all over the floor. They kept really cool during the day so it was nice to come in from the hot weather. It also had electric light fixtures as well (this is when you ask where the camping actually comes in…..cabins, lighting, showers, and a pool table?) Overall the cabins were fairly nice and only had a few small holes in them.

One particular night after we had fallen asleep a clever little mouse (let us call him Herbert for fun) happened to find one of these little holes. Herbert I am sure was used to people bringing food into their cabins and was innocently trying to find some of ours. He was sorely disappointed to find nothing as I have learned from previous accidents with raccoons never to keep food in your sleeping areas, but that is a different story.

Herbert was a very unlucky little mouse though. He might have found out we had nothing and just gone his merry way, until he pushed up against a metal baseball bat we had in the cabin and woke us up. Now metal baseball bats I am sure are quite handy at getting rid of mice, but don’t be worried we didn’t kill him, yet. I quickly grabbed the bat and chased after him, but mice are rather quick and like to hide under things. I needed help so I asked Laura to try and help me corner it so we could get back to sleep. Her petrified look told me I was on my own. (Whatever! I simply informed him that he was sadly mistaken in thinking that I was going to get off the raised, protective air mattress to help.)

At this point I think the mouse realized its impending doom if it tarried any longer and so it zoomed right back out of the hole it came in. At first we didn’t notice the hole and tried to go back to sleep thinking it was long gone, but little scratching feet on our floor told us otherwise. Herbert had returned. I grabbed the light and shone it in the general direction, but he had already gone. Laura noticed a small hole next to an electric conduit line that the mouse had run out of. I found a plastic bag and shoved it in the hole and to dissuade any future attempts of home invasion I backed up the bag with the end of a small wooden baseball bat. Herbert still scratched at the bag throughout the night, but could not get in. He did keep us up most of the night with all the noise though.

In the morning we told the camp manager about the mouse, and he set up a mouse trap with peanut butter on it and that was sure to be the end of poor Herbert. With little thought of what may come later, we went about our pool playing, game playing, and so on.

As the night wore on our little ones got tired and so I took Emma up to our cabin so she could go to sleep. She is a very sharp little girl and quickly noticed something in the corner of the cabin. I then had to spend the next 5-10 minutes explaining what a mouse trap was and why we had to kill this poor little mouse so it would not bite and get anybody sick. She seemed to understand and so I was beginning to think that things would be ok.

It was then that she pointed at the mouse trap and asked if it was the mouse. I tried to explain that the contraption was the mouse trap and not the mouse. And in her own words she replied, “then what is that soft fuzzy thing over there!” I quickly looked behind me and sure enough there was Herbert snacking on the peanut butter. Emma then pointed out with a big smile on her face, “Daddy, it is looking right at us!” Which I replied, “yes, it . . . >SNAP<……. And in less than a second the head wasn’t quite so soft and fuzzy anymore.

I looked with fear into my daughter’s eyes as I worried that her witnessing of the gruesome event would cause some mental trauma later in life. She stared back into my eyes and with the excitement and exuberance that only a 4 year old can have she exclaimed, “Daddy. . . THAT WAS AWESOME!” So much for the idea of our sweet little girl……