First it was squirrels falling out of the trees. (Maybe they
were confused and thought it was the Summer Olympics coming up?)
Now it’s a mouse under the kitchen sink.
How do I know? One recent evening, as we were sitting on the couch in our
living room, we noticed a rustling noise in the kitchen. It
sounded odd, but it stopped after a moment.
Then it started again.
The first reconnaissance trip found nothing. All was calm,
all was peaceful, all was quiet—until a couple minutes after we sat down again.
On the second reconnaissance, I waited at the kitchen
doorway until I could hear exactly where the noise was coming from. It wasn’t in
the pantry. It wasn’t behind the refrigerator. It was under the
sink.
I moved a little closer and waited again. When the rustling
returned, I opened the cupboard just in time to see a garbage bag stir as ‘something’
jumped out and disappeared.
No—I didn’t actually see the mouse. Circumstantial evidence,
however, led us to conclude that the rustling noise was in fact a mouse.
Fortunately, Señor Ratón hadn’t traveled as far as the
pantry yet. I’d been planning to find storage boxes for the pantry—eventually—but
this was an emergency. The Christmas candy went in our spare water-bottles,
while the rice and pasta moved into a big six-quart kettle. I jumbled the rest the spare glass jars I’d been saving for ‘something’. We emptied under the
sink as well, moving the garbage can out and setting everything else on the
counter.
Of course, that made more clutter in the kitchen. A couple
days later, therefore, I decided to compromise. I put the dishwasher soap and a
few other miscellanies back under the sink and left the garbage can out. I
figured the miscellanies would be safe as long as I kept any and all food out
of the way of Señor Ratón.
About twenty minutes later, as I was reading in the living
room, I heard a series of small thumps. Mr. Mouse had found the spare scrubber,
apparently, and seemed to be using it for his bowling practice.
After that, the soap, scrubber, garbage bags and all went
back on the counter.
We haven’t heard anything since. My guess is that the mouse
can get under the sink by squeezing past the pipes. Everything else is sealed, so he shouldn’t go any farther unless we happened to
leave the cupboard doors open. That’s just as well, because I’ll feel friendly toward him only until he gets into something important.
Though perhaps the mouse was as confused as the squirrel
gymnasts—he might just have wanted to practice his shot putting.
At any rate, there’s a mouse under my sink.
