Mouse Attack

When you live in the mountains, you assume certain risks: back-breaking snow, long drive times, gasping for air when you climb the stairs, and providing a safe haven for various critters.

I'm not afraid of mice, but I do not care for their dodginess. They jump out as if from nowhere, and I don't like those kind of surprises. Sure, they are cute, but their poop trails completely disgust me. So, my wife and I formulated an arrangement: I handle all pertinent spider issues, and my wife deals with all mice matters.

It's an arrangement that suits us very well.

Usually.

When you have two dogs and a cat, you don't expect anything to penetrate their border. The dogs sleep next to our bed, so if anything wants to come to the bed it has to get by the dogs first. Add in the cat, who loves to kill things, and one's peace of mind increases.

That's what I told myself for a long time.

Until one night...

My eye flipped open. I had just been sleeping so why was I suddenly awake? My heart was flittering, trying to clue me into something, but my brain had yet to catch up. The bedroom was dark. The dogs and my wife were present, but I felt eerily alone.

And then I heard it.

The squeaking of a mouse, in the house, in the bedroom. Somewhere. Near me.

Okay. Calm down. The dogs will handle it.

Or not, as I heard the snort-snort-snort of their breathing in and the aaaahhhhh of their breathing out. Snoring. Figures. My wife wasn't moving. How was it that I was the only one who heard the squeaking and was awake!

I lay so still that my legs started to cramp, my lungs begged for oxygen, and saliva filled my mouth for fear the swallowing would alert the mouse to my presence.

The mouse squeaked again. Its location changed. That little bitch was on the move!

Terror moved through me like water through a cracked dam. I said, out of the side of my mouth in a barely audible whisper, "_____? Are you awake?"

No answer.

I willed my wife to wake up. I sent brain waves to the dogs to snap to attention. My amateur techniques didn't work.

I was still laying still. On my side. My ear pressed into the pillow as I swore I could hear the mouse's little feet shuffling across the floor, assessing which one of us it was going to torture. I didn't want to hint it had already chosen me.

Then...

Oh.

My.

God.

I heard muffled shuffling through my pillow.

The little fucker was climbing up the side of the bed!

I glimpsed how heart attacks feel in the onset. Please, Baby Jesus, don't let it be true. My eyelids were closed so tightly they felt like black holes, swallowing everything inside them.

The muffled shuffling stopped. I didn't want to face what I knew was true. But I had to. I opened my eyes. The moonlight that had hinted its way through the curtains illuminated a tiny mouse body, inches from my face. I couldn't see its mouth, but I knew its teeth were bared and there was blood dripping from them. I couldn't breathe.

I screamed like a twelve-year-old girl and slapped the mouse off the bed with the back of my hand.

Finally! Household awake.