Charlie and Harriet

Fall is definitely here. It's too hot for Fall you say? Well, tell that to the bright orange tree outside our window, the huge, beautiful pumpkin ready to be carved, and the two field mice that have sought shelter in our apartment. Is the latter occurrence really a sign of Fall? When I saw the cute little mouse, whom we named Charlie, running up to sniff the pumpkin, it certainly felt like a very autumnal moment to me. And even though I screamed unabashedly and jumped up and down in disgust, I still thought it was the cutest thing I've seen in a while. I even wish I had a picture of it! 

We later discovered that Charlie had brought his wife Harriet. We knew that this was a dire situation that needed to be dealt with immediately. If we didn't act fast, Charlie and Harriet would have a billion precious little mice babies. We reluctantly bought mouse traps, and baited them with mozzarella cheese, if it's going to be their last meal it shouldn't be plain old cheddar. We went with mouse traps for two reasons. 1) If we used poison, they would probably die somewhere in our apartment where we couldn't find them, and they would stink up the place. 2) If they did make it out of the apartment, they would die and likely be eaten by a hawk, owl or cat which would in turn get sick from the poison. Anyway, Charlie and Harriet were too smart for the traps, they simply pushed them out of the way and went about their business. But, ants discovered the traps and began to avail themselves of the mozzarella cheese. In a strange turn of events, Harriet came out from her hiding place and nibbled on the ants! Needless to say, Jared quickly grabbed a broom and swept Harriet into a small trash can which I was holding. Without thinking, I ran to the balcony, handed the trash can to Jared and he threw it over the balcony shouting "Bon Voyage!" Seriously, he actually shouted that. This is how we deal with fear. By this point we were surging with adrenaline, so we waited for Charlie to come out and eat the ants, and when he did we repeated our broom hockey inspired plan with similar success. Harriet and Charlie died a quick and painless death, and were likely a nice breakfast to a passing hawk. 

So, Jared and I have endured our first mice infestation, and I think we have grown closer because of it. We truly banded together and faced the threat with tact, bravery, and much shrieking. It is actually a pretty sweet memory, I think I will look back on it fondly.

Discuss: Was our method of dealing with Charlie and Harriet inhumane? How would you have gotten rid of them, or would you have kept them as pets? They were super cute.