Miss Esther, there's a mouse in the house!

Thursday morning I woke up at 5:40 because I needed to get into work early to do a bit of media monitoring. Surprisingly, I wasn't very groggy. Lately I have been questioning if I really am a morning person because even with 7 hours, I wake up in a zombie-like fog. (Many may recall, that in Seattle I averaged 5.5-6.0 hours per night, and still had lots of energy.) This morning I was very glad to have more spring in my step because I needed it!

After waking I headed to the bathroom to shower and beautify myself. As I was...in the bathroom I saw the shower curtain twitch. I ignored it thinking it was just a wierd gravitational pull, but it did it again. Then I was worried. I recalled last March when I was visiting my friend Krista in NYC and there was a HUGE cockroach in the bathtub. So big that I refused to kill it myself. It was something that I did not want to see in my bathtub at any time. With much trepidation I opened the shower curtain; fortunately I did not see a slimy six-legged mutant. Instead, I saw a wriggly little worm that turned out to be a mouse tail.

This little grey mouse was frantically trying to climb out of the bathtub, but he couldn't quite make it and kept slipping to the bottom of the tub. Since I do not have an aversion towards mice, I actually felt sorry for the little guy. I quickly put some clothes on, grabbed a dishtowel, and tried to pick him up. The dish towel was for my hands. I may not have an aversion to him, but I do have one to the vermin he may have been carrying. Plus he probably bites.

My first attempt to pick him up failed. He's a quick bugger. But I was successful of the second try. I then had to find a flashlight because I remembered that the hallway light wasn't turned on the night before, and I didn't want to trip down the stairs while holding a mouse. Finally we made it outside. I crouched down to let him loose, and boy was he ready to escape. After I opened the towel he made a bee-line to the "curb" for our handrail to climb over the side and on to freedom. Too bad he did not realize that on the other side of that "curb" thing was a 1 story drop. So he fell, but amazingly he did not die. I guess he had so much adrenaline pulsing through his tiny body that the fall did not phase him. As soon as he hit ground he was off like a bolt of lightening. I'm sure he set some kind of mouse record for speed. I imagine, that he probably has a few broken bones or something...or he's just another one of those indestructible New York vermin.

Anyway, for all those who have reconsidered visiting me, we have plugged up all the holes in our apartment with steel wool, and we should no longer have any problems. I think that night he was stuck in our tub was his first night with us, because there weren't any of those tell-tale signs. We will also sweep more.