Little Stowaway

When we left our terminal last week, Kirby opened the truck door and saw a little mouse run to the sleeper area of the truck. For a day or two, we thought he had gotten out of the truck, but then we started to notice tiny little bites taken out of our loaf of bread. I put the bread in the cooler, so he developed a taste for peanuts. I hid those, and he decided he liked Ritz crackers. We started calling him Rattatoui, even though we never actually saw him. Only the evidence he was still in the truck. Eventually, he got into the 100 calorie packs of Lorna Dunes and Kirby said "He's crossed the line now!! Nobody eats my shortbread cookies!!" We wanted to wait until we got back home and set a trap for him, but after a few days of trying to leave little bits of food out for him, we realized he liked the fresh food better that he could open for himself. So then I had to re-pack everything to make it smaller and stuff it into our cooler. In the middle of the night, we heard all kinds of scratching and crunching. The next morning, we realized he had found a bag of cough drops!!!

Luckily, we had a chance to stop at a Wal-Mart for a few supplies, and we picked up a humane mouse trap. I refused to get poison or a killer trap. After all, he was like a pet now that we had been traveling with him for over a week. That little mouse went from Charleston, WV to Houston, TX to Cincinnati, OH, to Chicago, IL, to Detroit, MI, back to Houston, to Parker, PA, then finally to Freeport, TX.

So, here is what we bought for him. We baited it with a little cheese and peanut butter, then we got in bed and waited. About 30 minutes later, we heard him frantically scratching to get out of the box.

We put the trap on the ground outside the truck and turned it over, which lets the door fall open and the mouse get out. He put his head out and sniffed at first, then he ran off into the grass. I kept saying that I thought he would like the weather better in Texas, but couldn't help but sing a few lines of "Somewhere Out There" as we drove off. "Even though I know how very far apart we are, it helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star. . . . ." I hope his little mouse mother reads my blog so she will know where he is and that he is safe and happy.