Your Rat is Dead

Almost two weeks ago, my husband and I were sitting in the family room watching some TV. We heard water dripping in the kitchen and couldn't figure out what it was. My husband walked in the the room and realized our "water dripping" was two mice, eating bread wrapped in foil on the counter. I've never had a mouse in my house and I did much screaming and crying. We quickly went to a store at 10pm and bought traps and bleach. We set the traps and went to bed. I didn't sleep much as I envisioned mice crawling on my face while I slept, Daniel slept like a baby. Within a couple days, two mice had been caught, the kitchen had been thoroughly bleached and all was well with the world. Cut to last night... ************************************************************************************* Daniel was out of town and so my mom came to visit. Around nine, I headed into the master bedroom and saw a really fast "critter" run behind the elliptical (thank god someone is exercising around here, but that's another post.) I ran screaming from the room and for the next thirty minutes, my mom and I screamed and jumped around, a la Lucy and Ethel, as I tried to gather up the courage to run into the bedroom and grab my purse. (You know my new Coach purse wasn't spending the night with the mice.) We set traps and barricaded the door so the mouse wouldn't continue to explore the house. I "slept" on the couch, although images of mice crawling on me wouldn't leave my head. ************************************************************************************* This morning, I had my carpet replaced. Part of that job was recarpeting my master bedroom closet. I felt bad sending our installer into that room and warned him of whom he was sharing a room with. About two hours into the job, I was debating my mom on how much to tip the installer. I wanted to tip him something since it was Sunday and he was doing the job all alone, except for the mice. Was it $20 or $50, the two bills at my disposal? As we talked, I heard a cracking sound and then he walked into the room where we sat and said with a thick accent, "Your rat is dead." At this point, he wiped a hatchet clean on a cloth and dropped a baggie containing the mouse in a garbage pile. I felt the need to explain that it wasn't a rat, since that would be really disgusting, but decided against and decided that a $50 sounded good. ************************************************************************************* So, this is an ode to Fernando, the Lowe's carpet installer. He went above and beyond the call of duty. While I doubt I will sleep in that room tonight, (some combination of mouse murder and potential mouse friends lurking in wait has me envisioning mice attacking me while I sleep), I really appreciate his effort.