From my name, I’m sure that you can deduce that I live in the city of Miami. Like many other cities across the country, many, many homes are currently in foreclosure. It just so happens that the house next door to us is one of these homes.

Currently, the grass is growing up pretty high. It’s somewhat of a haven for mosquitoes. Granted, we have a 6 foot privacy fence, but those don’t deter critters. We haven’t made much of a stink about the maintenance of the house because, well, for the most part, we can’t see it. But, and there’s always a but, something happened to change our point of view.

Let’s rewind the clock about a week. Lovey* and I had just returned from vacation. Road weary from our 45 minute trip (yes, that’s sarcasm), we entered our abode with plans of putting things away and then resting. First stop, the kitchen to put away the remaining booze.

As I enter the kitchen, the first thing that I notice is that my package of bread is on the floor. Mind you, this isn’t a big loaf of bread, it’s a small package of round sandwich bread all healthy and stuff. And it’s on the floor. Which is not where I left it.

I picked up my bread and wondered why the heck it was on the floor. Lovey took the bag from me and deposited it in the garbage. On the way to the garbage can, however, he noticed that there were some holes in the bag. A mouse. Grrrr.

Now, let me say this. I run a clean house. Yes, it’s dusty occasionally and there may be a fur tumbleweed because the dog perpetually sheds, but overall, we’re clean and I have never seen a rodent in the house in the 4.5 years that I’ve been living there.

We don’t see our new “house guest” anywhere so we proceed to unpack. Not long goes by before Lovey hears some rustling behind the dryer and it is there we find the culprit. The bread bag chewer. The mouse turd dropper. And it’s a tiny little thing. But still, it is not welcome. So we set a mouse trap for the little bugger.

Turns out that it got in through the dryer vent and chewed through the hose! Determined little bastard. Apparently, someone disturbed its habitat next door so it came to see what else it could find. Well, my dear mouse, a mistake you have made.

Don’t go all PETA on me here. Lovey decided he would try to shoot the mouse with his BB gun. My only thought was ‘man, that thing is gonna EXPLODE!’ Fortunately, he missed and the mouse went back to hide. Woo! No cleaning up mouse guts!

A trip to Home Depot for a new dryer vent proved uneventful and we were fairly certain that the mouse had gone back outside, so the vent was installed, the trap was set, and we basically forgot about it. All of this happened on Saturday.

No sign of mousey on Sunday.

Monday morning, I was up early, getting my workout on downstairs. While I was letting the dog do her thing outside, I went to do my thing inside. I turned on the bathroom light and nearly shit myself as what to my wondering eyes did appear? A little brown mouse trying to get out of the toilet. Awwwww. FLUSH!

(Did you think I was gonna pull that thing out of the toilet?!?!)

One courtesy flush later, I was still a little scared to sit on the toilet. Who wants a wet angry mouse to bite their ass?

I think they can swim. I wonder where it ended up. Wherever it is, it has a great mouse story to tell its friends.

By Shyne

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