No more critters

Image from B. Kliban, Cats

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In years past, when the leaves and the temperatures started dropping, we've often had a mouse or a few mousies sneak into our old house for shelter. They might have found any number of tiny spots along the brick line of our foundation or even under the back door frame. Seems we never figured out we had a mouse until we had three or four. It's like our heating vents and back cedar closets were a venue for vermin speed-dating.

When our daughter was younger every now and then she would let go a blood-curdling scream and we'd rush up the stairs until our hearts pumped in our necks. A mouse! There! In my room! I'm not sleeping here tonight! she'd cry out. After awhile we got the hang of this and then she'd scream again and my husband and I would look over at each other, nod our heads in agreement, and say, "Must be another mouse in the house." They always liked her room best because it was the warmest. And the messiest.

One time James Lileks ran a contest for best "mouse story." I submitted one about the daring mouse that had begun to patrol our house at night and even had the audacity to nibble down the pak of Rolaids my husband kept on the nightstand by our bed. We woke in the morning and the 8-pak of heartburn tabs had been chiseled down to look a bit like the Washington Monument.

Once a couple of horny mice took a liking to each other and before I knew it we had a family of six living in my son's closet. My husband was out of town for the week and the kids and I had just come home from a long day at work and school and day care. We flipped on the lights to my son's room and the six mice scattered away, all in different directions, like one big fireworks burst: north! south! southeast! west!

Last summer our neighbor's cat took a liking to our porch. He's a street cat and our neighbors never bring him in at night. He's had so many fights (we know; we hear him in the back alley) that his tail is only an inch long and he's fairly distrustful, even for a cat.

At night he'd curl up on our cushioned rocker and when we'd come out to get the morning paper, all we'd see is the swaying of the rocking chair and a soft round indent in the seat cushion.

Once in a while the cat would puke up his night's meal. There'd be a tail or some tiny bones in his puke, all of it right there on our porch. Seems he was trying to break us in. When we told the neighbors, they brought over a plastic squirt bottle filled with water and told us to squirt him in the face every time he came around. That would get rid of him.

Of course, we couldn't do this. We hardly knew the cat.

He got over the puking and pretty soon he got over us. Now he greets us when we come home at night and even flops clumsily on his back so we can scratch his belly. And those late fall mousies? Let's just say our little black foster cat is quite the fat feline these days. . .