Storytime part III

Today's story is funny and horrifying all at the same time; it was difficult for me to write without vomiting on my computer screen. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Rodent versus Woman: Scarred for Life

It was late fall in 2004. I was on my last clinical rotation for PT school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Only six more weeks until I graduated with my Masters left my school days behind. Life was good, my friends.

When they assign clinical rotations in different states the student is responsible for finding their own housing, and luckily for me Keri knew someone in Little Rock who could provide me shelter. Sounds perfect, right?

I made the 6 hour drive to Little Rock every Sunday night and headed back to St. Louis every Friday night---just to see the boyfriend and whatnot. There wasn't much to do in Little Rock and I had no desire to explore. But for some odd reason I decided to stay put one weekend: a decision that I will always regret.

Friday night I cozied up on the couch and began my TV night all alone. It was kind of nice, actually......until I heard something fall in the kitchen. I froze, thinking maybe there was a mass murderer hunting for a victim. But eventually I mustered up the courage to look in the kitchen and found nothing. "Meh, no big deal. I'm probably just hearing things," I tell myself. And I settle back into the couch.

Then out of the corner of my eye I see a dark object sprint out of my bedroom-- but as I jerk my head around to get a better view, I lose the mystery object. My heart starts pounding so loud that I drown out my thoughts. And then I see it: another dark object scurrying out of my bedroom and down the hall. My brain stalls for a second and then I realize that this object is a mouse. A real live mouse, sharing the house with me. Stalking me, ready to attack me, and scratch my eyes out. And with that came my first blood curdling scream. I present to you Satan reincarnated:
Immediately I yank my feet up onto the couch and call Nate back in St. Louis. He is getting ready to go out [how convenient] while I am hyperventilating. "Holycrap, wehavemicehere! Imightdie." is all I can say, and then another one runs right toward me and then behind my couch. I scream again and Nate holds back laughter. LAUGHTER, people. At a time in my life when I was nearly dying. The mouse then sprints from behind my couch over to the television and begins a staring contest with me. Those beady little eyes! Disgusting nose! And hideous whiskers! All staring right at me as if to say, "I'm going to get you, my pretty. Welcome to Arkansas!"

I get off the phone with Nate and call my parents, who also show restraint in holding back their laughter. I beg my dad to tell me the truth: can mice crawl up bedposts, or would they just slide right off? I have to know the answer or I might have a stroke. He calmly tells me [lying through his teeth!] that they cannot climb vertical surfaces and I would be safe in my bed. I don't fully believe him but I love that he tried to comfort me anyway:)

As I tried to sleep that night I could hear them in the walls. Scraping their razor sharp claws through the drywall in search of food. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that there must have been hundreds of them in the walls. Hundreds.

So after zero sleep I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went to Target and bought a ridiculous amount of mouse traps. Even though I was ticked off I couldn't bring myself to purchase the traps that cut off their heads. Can you imagine hearing those snap into place over and over again through the night? Me either, so I bought the ones with glue in them---which grab hold of their scrawny legs and never let go. I also purchased a new alarm clock that boasted 'soothing sounds to help you fall asleep.' I was pretty sure that the hearing waves crash on the beach was about a million times better than mice crawling in the walls.

I placed about 5 traps around the house in strategic locations and I waited. Every now and then I could hear a faint squeal but I didn't let myself fully process this sound. That night I blasted some mad ocean tunes and pulled the covers up over my head. Even though I was depriving myself of vital oxygen it was still better than going blind from mice claws.

That morning as I made my way to the shower I stole a glance at one of the traps behind my bedroom door. What I saw will scar me for life. There was not one, not two, but FOUR dead mice in the tiny trap. I dry heaved a little and then proceeded to check the other traps: all brimming with dead mice.
But the worst moment came while I was standing on a stool [to get off of the infested floor, duh] peering over the stove to investigate a trap. A mouse came barreling out of the heating duct through the floor and I nearly had a seizure. I think I blacked out for a moment in time because I don't remember much else.

When my roommate [who rented the mouse house] came back from her weekend away I informed her that if she didn't contact her landlord about an exterminator, that I would be staying in a hotel for the remainder of my time in Arkansas. She of course called, and they 'took care of it' [whatever that means]. I didn't see another beastly creature during my stay. But the people at work had a fun time teasing me about Gus-Gus....the mouse from Cinderella. Please. As if they were this cute:

Before PETA comes to get me, let me just say that it is not normal to share quarters with obscene amounts of rodents. They carry diseases and lay hundreds of feces all over the place [including our kitchen countertops! where we prepared food!], and they should stay outside where they belong. Don't tell me you wouldn't lose your mind after this experience, too. It always gets a chuckle from my friends but let's just say it wasn't so funny at the time.

Are your feet pulled up off the ground yet? Anyone else have 'an experience'?

21 comments:

  1. Ugh..that's disguisting...but I think I may have you beat [unfortunately]. I lived with bats..yes, I said bats my ENTIRE Senior year of college. Our landlord never did anything about it despite the fact we complained non-stop. One Friday night I was alone in our apt..also watching TV when one started swooping overhead. I screamed bloody murder, ran to my room and called my mom. "I'm coming home" was all I said. And I did. I packed as quickly as I could all the while starring at the crack below my door. I drove back to Milwaukee at 9:00 at night and was terrified to come back.

    We probably had close to 5 or 6 encounters with bats. Jim was visiting once and when he went into the bathroom all I heard was "whoa, whoa, whoa!". He came out and said there was a bat present. My roommate and I weren't surprised.

    Oh, and then there was the one some guy killed after he saw us screaming outside [we ran down 4 flights of stairs and usually lost it on the street]. It was in our stairwell and for a week straight I had to step over it before our landlord cleaned it up. Gross.

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  2. Ech...gross! When I first moved into Maloney's we had a little critter friend. I seriously had heart attacks for about 30 minutes. It just kept running back and forth in the kitchen. The boys tried to pretend that it wasn't a mouse but I knew better! I plugged up the bottom of my bedroom door with a towel and kept it there for a month. Even after the little guys were gone, I still freaked out!!!

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  3. Reading that was like living my absolute worse fear, only with spiders). I have dreams like that about spiders and then have to wake Rob up when I turn on the lights and check under the covers just to make sure I'm safe (since spiders CAN crawl up bedposts!!)

    Ugh, I can't believe I just typed the word 'spiders' three times. Now I have the creepy crawlies...

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  4. Alright, Julia, really could have done without the visuals here!!! Urgh!
    I have grown to not hate mice (bc C claims that Ed is indeed technically a 'rodent,' but I refuse to believe him), but I am still with ya. Screaming, dancing up on top of the couch... eew.
    I am so sorry you have those 'deceased mice' visuals stuck in your head... I can't imagine.

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  5. Thanks so much for the lactose advice. I never thought of soy milk. I'm just so happy the symptoms have disappeared. I was starting to worry it was something much worse.

    As for mice...when we first moved into our house, I was in the bathroom…doing what one does in a bathroom, when a mouse came out from under the vanity, sat up on it's back legs and just sat there looking at me. I swear the thing was tame. I screamed, it ran but, ultimately the rodent met its demise... Worse thing ever, DH used glue traps in the garage and shed, OMG, just terrible!!!

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  6. The house I'm in now gets mice. I have NO idea how they get in. So I have several of the round black snap traps that they just crawl into and then it snaps so I never have to see them. There's just a little red marker on top that tells me when the trap has caught a mouse. I couldn't stand the thought of them suffering for a long time with poison (plus heaven forbid my dogs get into it) and the glue traps seemed equally mean. As much as I despise the thought of a snap trap, it's fast at least.

    I have one of those ultrasonic pest repeller things too so I swear the mice that make it in are deaf.

    One of the dogs caught a mouse once too. Apparently after I'd been gone for 9 weeks, the mice decided they should move in. Ducky found one of them and caught it for me. I screamed bloody murder at him so he wouldn't eat it and then scooped it up in a jar to throw away. Grody.

    I'm not terribly frightened of mice, I just don't like them because they carry disease and they poop all over.

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  7. That is so gross that you had more than 1 mouse on a trap!!

    When we first moved into our apartment we had a couple mice. (we knew there were only 2 because that is all we caught and we kept the traps out for quite some time) We used the same sticky traps and what was even more disturbing is when woke up one morning, we found we had one, but it was only half on the trap and was limping around the kitchen trying to get off of it! ahhh! I made jon get it, put it in a bag and bring it to the dumpster. bleh. I still gag a little thinking about it.

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  8. OMgosh do I ever have a story for you!

    My parents house is an old farm house, there is and will always be mice. We never really see them, except for the odd dropping, and I expect the cats to take care of them. Well one day I walk into the kitchen and saw one on the counter! I yelled and grabbed the cat. As I walked to the counter the mouse ran under the bread box, so I put the cat on the counter and stood as far back as I could and slowly lifted the bread box. Well I guess the cat was full of mice that day, or was just being lazy and the mouse started running away off the counter, towards me! I screamed and started running, but I was slower then the mouse.. as I ran away I squished something with my feet. That's right I killed the mouse with my foot, there was blood on the ground. I will never forget that feeling. I was totally grossed out! I continued screaming into the computer room where Micaela was sitting and made her go pick it up.
    SO GROSS.

    My aunt has a really gross story too, I know she wrote it somewhere, so I'll find it tomorrow and comment with it, it's totally gross.. something about dead mice in her pillow case!

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  9. omg, i hate mice. i have a few stories about mice, ill have to post about them sometime. i still laugh my ass off....and then i shudder because i hate them.

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  10. Kate.

    NO!

    That is the worst story ever. I cannot even wrap my head around it....or the pillow case.

    [[[[shudder]]]]

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  11. Oh.my.GOSH! Ugh! I hate mice. Ew.

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  12. Ugh! Sad to say, but you're actually lucky that they died in the glue traps. Because the one and only time I used a glue trap, I found out that mice can SCREAM. And yes, I mean bloodcurdling howling type screams. *shudder*

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  13. OMG, I wouldn't have been able to sleep there. I'm so impressed that you did. I have goose bumps from that story. Yucky, yucky!

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  14. Here's my aunts story:
    VERY gross, beware...

    "My story started when my husband and I went to bed one night and realized there was a horrid stench in the bedroom. We couldn't locate the smell, so we went to sleep and it continued all night. The next night, same thing. That night, though, we made the discovery that it was worse...under the covers. (fade in scary music here). Coincidentally, I had thought I had a y__ i____ coming on, so I had taken a "treatment" that day. My husband put two and two together and said very cautiously "honey, I think it's YOU". I disagreed vehemently, as I lived with myself all day and no such stench was eminating from my body...I was certain...I would have known. Tired as we were, we tolerated the smell another night and in the morning, washed all the sheets and pillowcases and turned over the mattress.
    The third night, we cautiously got into bed. Okay so far. But soon enough, the stench returned. Again, worse under the covers, and again, suspicions from Jerry about the origins of the smell (which was the worst thing I've ever smelled by the way...smelled like death). A horrible night's sleep, and in the middle of the night I realized that the only thing we hadn't investigated was the pillow I sleep with between my legs (ask anyone who's a mom). I tossed it out of the bed in a noxious daze....and awoke in the morning to discover that the smell had lessened. I peered down at the leg pillow lying on the floor. There was a large black-grey mottled spot. I knew immediately what had happened, screamed briefly, then called Jerry in a panic and had him remove the... thing. A very large mouse had died between the pillow and the sham, and had been decomposing between my legs for 3 days. I know...ick!"

    ewwwwwww

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  15. This is sooooo funny! I understand how terrifying it must have been at the time, but your retelling is just hilarious.

    I was at home alone in high school once and sitting in the kitchen. Suddenly a tiny mouse runs out from under the stove. I freaked out and jumped onto my chair and stayed there until my parents got home. I never thought I'd be the type to do that, but apparently I was wrong!

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  16. Ugh! Gross. I can imagine Joe laughing at me as well. Good for you for getting the traps, but did you actually dispose of them once they were caught?!

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  17. OMG - gross. I'm cringing right now.

    And mice can SCREAM??? that has to be the most horrible thing in the world!

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  18. Kate, seriously....that is the worst story EVER. I cannot breathe thinking about that.

    And no, Sharon, I didn't dispose of them. I refused to get that close and we made the landlord do his duties.

    I believe that the squeaking I heard at night came from the dying mice in the traps. I just chose to block that part out of my memory, though. Or maybe it was the ocean sounds that soothed me.

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  19. Let's just go with the ocean sounds. Your story creeped me out, but then I read all the comments. And now I keep looking over my shoulder. I don't think we have mice. Although last summer we found one dead in the collection bucket of the dehumidifier. Bryan took care of that one. Gah! I had completely forgotten/blocked that memory.

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  20. Actually, I have a story about mice. When I was camping once as a Girl Scout we had to use latrines. Of course there is no light. I went in and tried to hurry as fast as I could. I felt something by my feet and thought it was a bug. Then, it tried to crawl up my pant leg- ew! I shook it off and pulled my pants up so fast! When I opened the door everyone waiting yelled "Oh, crap, a mouse!!!" I ran like hell and didn't look back.

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  21. I find the humor of your friends, but it sounds like it was a full on infestation! I mean I can handle seeing A mouse, but reproducing, crapping MICE. Gah.

    Although in college, I had to deal with cochroaches . . . and I think I might have traded for the mice.

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