Crystal Graham: Every house needs a mouse

Once, not too long ago, I picked up an adorable little item at an arts and crafts show.

It wasn’t expensive … in fact I think it cost around $5.

I picked up a wooden mouse … with what I considered at the time an adorable catchphrase.

It read … every house needs a mouse.

Of course, I was an apartment dweller you might say.

And for some reason now unbeknownst to me, I never had a problem with mice.

Making the little addition to my curio cabinet even that much cuter.

And for a number of years following the spur-of-the-moment purchase, I continued to live in apartments.

With no mice.

And yet I carried that little mouse with me everywhere we went.

The mouse with the catchphrase … every house needs a mouse.

I had never had a close encounter with a mouse … except for maybe Stuart Little in the movies years ago.

He was a cute little guy, wasn’t he?

And like Stuart Little, my wooden treasure also was cute … he was gray with handpainted whiskers and a pink pipecleaner tail curled up just as you might expect.

He even looked like he was smiling at me.

Of course, last year, my husband and I got our first home of our own – no apartments or landlords.

And while decorating our home, I decided that our little mouse didn’t match our new decor.

While I still agreed that every house did indeed need a mouse – I thought it was time for our little guy to move on to greener pastures.

It wasn’t the only item discarded in the mix; a lot of old things didn’t make it into our home.

And so, my little mouse was carted out to a pile of items – labeled yard sale.

The tables have turned on me a bit recently, however.

It seems as if God agrees that every house does indeed need a mouse – or two – or three.

You see, since our mouse made its home out in our shed, we’ve had some other unwelcome
visitors.

Not the cute, made-for-TV mice that you might expect.

Not the cute, wooden types like the one I picked up at the craft show.

Real, live mice.

And while I think they look like small, fuzzy cats, I still don’t think that our house needs a real mouse!

I’ve been trying to rid our home of these rodents, putting a peanut butter surprise on wooden traps for the buggers.

And I’ve caught three mice – in three days.

As I type this column, I’m keeping an ear out for a click – the telltale sign that we’ve got another one.

While cats are out of the question because of our allergies, I think I finally figured out how to get rid of these suckers once and for all.

I’m thinking of inviting my old mouse back into our house.

I’m hoping that it didn’t get sold at the yard sale we had this summer.

If every house needs a house – as in one – I’d prefer my house to have a wooden mouse.

It’s at least worth a try.