Domestic Crisis Update: Situation averted.

You will be relieved to know that although the rodent situation in my house had been nearing catastrophe, I am not suspending this blog, nor will I keep from teaching class today or (gods-willing) grading the papers I have on my desk.

I am sorry to report, however, that the support from Congress, I mean the cats, was not quite what I would have hoped for. Sure, Sazha did a great job of herding the mouse into my study, where it could disrupt my workday. Then Jacques Monod did manage to corner it behind the file cabinet for several hours. But when I tried to use a broom to flush the mouse out into her awaiting gray claw-adorned paws, she ran away and no amount of explanation on my part could convince her that I was not aiming the broom at her. Then, when she trapped the mouse between the screen door and wooden door to the front of the house, she just smelled it.

Frankly, I had expected better.

I mean, two weeks ago, when the PP and I took the cats in for their annual shots etc., Jacques Monod was a holy terror. It finally took three people--the PP plus two vets--to contain her so she could get those shots, and also they had wrapped her in a sheet and the PP was wearing one of those giant leather mittens that cats cannot bite through. When I told the PP about the rodent situation here at the house, he said, "Well, if JM can get involved, she'll get that mouse, and she'll murder it and eat its brains."

I am serious. That is what he said, and really: he is not a violent guy.

But what did she do? She smelled it.

So I had to get her out of the way, and then I managed to prop open the screen door and close the wooden door, thereby allowing the mouse to escape through this improvised airlock into the big world.

I know this is a temporary solution, and that it will likely be no time before the mouse comes back in the house, but there it is: my own private bailout.