# Ack!



## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

I was sitting at my desk happily scrolling through all the messages on the kindle board when suddenly I heard my cat dashing around the family room downstairs as though she had been possessed. Turns out she was chasing a mouse, which panicked and made its get away by running inside the heating vent! Ack, ACK! Why doesn't anything exciting like this ever happen when my husband is home to deal with it??!? Now I have three cats sitting in a row in front of the heater, waiting with bated breath for the mouse to come back out. Meanwhile I am terrified the mouse will exit in some other room and scare the beejesus out of me. So much for spending a quiet rainy afternoon with the kindle.


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## Teninx (Oct 27, 2008)

Turn on heat, force out mouse. You don't want the little critter scampering all the way down to the furnace.


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## Kirstin (Oct 29, 2008)

The cats will hear it move away from where it is and follow it.  The cats are probably thrilled right now!!


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## Angela (Nov 2, 2008)

Wisteria Clematis said:


> I was sitting at my desk happily scrolling through all the messages on the kindle board when suddenly I heard my cat dashing around the family room downstairs as though she had been possessed. Turns out she was chasing a mouse, which panicked and made its get away by running inside the heating vent! Ack, ACK! Why doesn't anything exciting like this ever happen when my husband is home to deal with it??!? Now I have three cats sitting in a row in front of the heater, waiting with bated breath for the mouse to come back out. Meanwhile I am terrified the mouse will exit in some other room and scare the beejesus out of me. So much for spending a quiet rainy afternoon with the kindle.


LOL!! Never fails... hubby gone... things break or strange animals show up!! I went out to check the pool one morning to find the largest, fatest field mouse I have ever seen swimming around in my pool and it was up to me to get him out! Yuck!


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## Teninx (Oct 27, 2008)

Had a flock of turkeys in the front yard wake me up a couple days ago. Clearing work on the abutting property most likely rousted them from the woods and into the neighborhood.  I reminded them that it's almost Thanksgiving and they took off.


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## Sailor (Nov 1, 2008)

Teninx said:


> Turn on heat, force out mouse. You don't want the little critter scampering all the way down to the furnace.


Or cook him in there and kitties get well done mouse instead of raw...ewwwww. Cats will get him no matter where he comes out at...I am sure the mouse is more afraid of you and the cats then you are of him.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Wisteria Clematis said:


> I was sitting at my desk happily scrolling through all the messages on the kindle board when suddenly I heard my cat dashing around the family room downstairs as though she had been possessed. Turns out she was chasing a mouse, which panicked and made its get away by running inside the heating vent! Ack, ACK! Why doesn't anything exciting like this ever happen when my husband is home to deal with it??!? Now I have three cats sitting in a row in front of the heater, waiting with bated breath for the mouse to come back out. Meanwhile I am terrified the mouse will exit in some other room and scare the beejesus out of me. So much for spending a quiet rainy afternoon with the kindle.


Cover the vents in the rooms you want to sit in!


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## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

sailor said:


> Or cook him in there and kitties get well done mouse instead of raw...ewwwww. Cats will get him no matter where he comes out at...I am sure the mouse is more afraid of you and the cats then you are of him.


That's what I'm afraid of. I strongly suspect that roasted mouse might not smell too well either! Our heating system is circulating hot water....you don't think the mouse could end up in the boiler do you Because if so I am going to have nightmares about turning on the shower in the morning and having a mouse spew out. I may never feel the same way about this house again.


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## tc (Oct 29, 2008)

The cats are waiting for their snack.


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## Sailor (Nov 1, 2008)

Wisteria Clematis said:


> That's what I'm afraid of. I strongly suspect that roasted mouse might not smell too well either! Our heating system is circulating hot water....you don't think the mouse could end up in the boiler do you Because if so I am going to have nightmares about turning on the shower in the morning and having a mouse spew out. I may never feel the same way about this house again.


This sounds like the start of a Stephen King novel.


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2008)

I have 2 cats.  TYPO is the fat, older, lethargic cat and Fuzzy is the young hunter.  When the weather is mild, like it is now, I leave a window open for them so they can come and go as they please without constantly bothering me.

Well, fuzzy being quite the little hunter has cost me no small amount of grief.  She always bring me gifts, most of them are usually still alive.  These 'gifts range from the tiny gecko(think GEICO)lizards all the way up to birds and squirrels and everything in between.

Last week she managed to bring in a large rat.  This is no small field mouse my friends, it's a full blown rat.  It got loose.  A couple days later, TYPO and Fuzzy had him trapped under the refrigerator.  When I tried to help get him out, he bolted down the hall to hide in my closet.

I've not seen him since.  I am hoping to recapture him and release him outside before he dies somewhere in the house.
Stupid cat.


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## Sailor (Nov 1, 2008)

Hey Vampyre, it Worked!!! I got a picture in my post. Thank you sooo much. I used photobucket. Sorry, off topic on this post.


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2008)

Aye! Glad I could help there matey. Arrrg!


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## oddsoxx (Oct 28, 2008)

Wisteria Clematis said:


> I was sitting at my desk happily scrolling through all the messages on the kindle board when suddenly I heard my cat dashing around the family room downstairs as though she had been possessed. Turns out she was chasing a mouse, which panicked and made its get away by running inside the heating vent! Ack, ACK! Why doesn't anything exciting like this ever happen when my husband is home to deal with it??!? Now I have three cats sitting in a row in front of the heater, waiting with bated breath for the mouse to come back out. Meanwhile I am terrified the mouse will exit in some other room and scare the beejesus out of me. So much for spending a quiet rainy afternoon with the kindle.


One night when my husband had been gone one week of a five week trip (to Hawaii I might add!) I was messing around on my computer in the kitchen until after midnight and suddenly thought I'd better see if the cat was still in the garage. I walked down the hall in the dark to the garage. On the way back, I flipped on the hall light and saw, to my horror, my cat playing with a snake. In the hall, the very same hall that I had just walked down barefooted. Admittedly it was a very small snake but when it's midnight and your husband is thousands of miles away, it becomes a nine foot boa constrictor. Actually, I was convinced it was baby rattlesnake and snatched my cat away and shut her in the bedroom so she wouldn't get bitten. Then I got the huge broom out of the closet and prepared to do battle. The snake, no doubt scared to death by this time, crawled down between a couple of widely spaced ceramic tiles and disappeared under the baseboard!

Of course, I did what any wife would do in these circumstances...I called my husband in Hawaii and told him this was all his fault and had he been home (for once!) this wouldn't have happened. I didn't sleep much that night convinced the snake would crawl back out into the hall and my cat would catch it and bring it to me as a present. The next day I went out and bought the widest masking tape I could find and taped every baseboard in the house. My father told me the snake would die inside the wall and would smell but at that point, I was past caring. A month later my husband came home, plugged up a tiny hole in the garage closet where the snake had gotten in and we took the masking tape off the baseboards figuring the snake was either gone or dead. Ha! The very next day when my husband was a work, that snake crawled back out into the hall. He was in pretty bad shape so I just took the broom and swept him outside. I do NOT like snakes and I especially don't like snakes in my house, and I really, really don't like snakes in my house when my husband is not.

Linda


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

My cat Pookah brought a snake into the house once. Just a little garter snake...Pookah was having the best time playing with it though. Throwing in the air, catching it, flinging it around. Yikes! I shooed her away and scooped the snake into a trashcan and took him back outside to the garden. The poor thing looked terrified and just slithered away.

When Pookah and Bandit were young, they were good mousers but when they got older, they were slow and lazy. Mice would run right in front of their noses and they wouldn't budge (we have an old house so it is easy for mice to get in).

Now we have a feral cat, Erb, living under our deck. He's been there for almost 18 months (yes, we feed him). No more mice in the house, I think Erb catches them all on the way in.

L


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## Teninx (Oct 27, 2008)

Wisteria Clematis said:


> That's what I'm afraid of. I strongly suspect that roasted mouse might not smell too well either! Our heating system is circulating hot water....you don't think the mouse could end up in the boiler do you Because if so I am going to have nightmares about turning on the shower in the morning and having a mouse spew out. I may never feel the same way about this house again.


When you wrote that the mouse got into a heating vent, I was thinking forced hot air. I don't think he'll get too far along those hot copper pipes....


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2008)

Fuzzy has only brought me one snake. It was dead already.


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## Guest (Nov 16, 2008)

> I do NOT like snakes and I especially don't like snakes in my house, and I really, really don't like snakes in my house when my husband is not.


Do you like them in the rain? Do you like them on a train?


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## Guest (Nov 16, 2008)

Green Snakes and Spiders?


I don't like spiders and snakes, 
that ain't what it takes to love me.


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## Guest (Nov 16, 2008)

I figured I'd go the rest of my life and never hear another reference to Jim Stafford... unless it came from LR.


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## Angela (Nov 2, 2008)

LuckyRainbow said:


> Do you like them in the rain? Do you like them on a train?


I do not like them in the rain. I do not like them on a train.

note: thank goodness for modify!!


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## Guest (Nov 16, 2008)

I don't like them in my face,
I don't like them on My Space

I do't like them near or far.
on a bus or in a car.

Ok I have to stop I am geting carried away.


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## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

oddsoxx said:


> A month later my husband came home, plugged up a tiny hole in the garage closet where the snake had gotten in and we took the masking tape off the baseboards figuring the snake was either gone or dead. Ha! The very next day when my husband was a work, that snake crawled back out into the hall. He was in pretty bad shape so I just took the broom and swept him outside. I do NOT like snakes and I especially don't like snakes in my house, and I really, really don't like snakes in my house when my husband is not.




Linda, thank you for making me laugh this morning! And also for making me feel grateful that I am just dealing with a beady eyed little mouse and not an evil slithery snake. Update: my husband got home late last night and the minute he walked into the front hallway he spotted the mouse just emerging from the heating vent there. Yikes! All three cats are stalking around the house now sniffing suspiciously in every corner and I have told them in no uncertain terms that any little gifts they find today are to be given to daddy and NOT mommy.

We don't normally have a mouse problem except when the wintry weather first starts arriving--as Leslie said those critters can squeeze in through the tiniest of holes. And we live in the country and near a wood. When the snow gets really deep I have been known to trudge out there and leave food for the possums and racoons and little feral cats. There are also wild bird feeders hanging in trees everywhere around the house. So I don't mind sharing with critters--I just would rather not have them inside my house.


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## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

Leslie said:


> Now we have a feral cat, Erb, living under our deck. He's been there for almost 18 months (yes, we feed him). No more mice in the house, I think Erb catches them all on the way in.


Several years ago we had eight little feral cats living under our deck! They arrived in the middle of the winter during an especially bad snowstorm and I felt sorry for them and put food out every day. As soon as spring arrived I put out have-a-hart traps, caught every single one of them and got them all neutered at a local no-kill shelter. The shelter folks insisted I bring 'em all back and re-release them here though so a whole new band of ferals would not move in and start the cycle all over again. I think only one or two are left now....the rest have moved on or been eaten by predators. But you are right Leslie, that year we did not have a single mouse inside our house. My husband still insists that a few mouse traps would have been a lot cheaper than the contribution I made to the shelter for neutering all those cats however.


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## Guest (Nov 16, 2008)

My sister is a dog breeder and she also has horses and a variety of other animals.  With all the all of the different types of food stored there and being out in the country close to woods and open ground, she had a rodent problem.

This escalated to a snake problem.  The came in looking for the mice and rats.  sounds good at first but here in S.E. GA, most of those snakes were poisonous.  Not good for her, her grand kids or her other animals.

One day this cat showed up out of the blue.  She never let the dogs bother her andshe proceeded to tackle the mice and rats.  Being wild, she was also fertile and had kittens.

She was a good mother and taught all of her kids to hunt.  They were making a difference!  

Well of of those kittens grew up and suddenly all of the 'food' was gone and she had way too many cats.  This is where my Fuzzy came from.  The rest of the cats either left on their own or were given away.  One big Tom was kept.  He got neutered.

At first her husband was upset by all of the cats.  She pointed out that the cats saved them a fortune in feed and solved the snake/mouse/rat problem.  Everything worked out.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

I kept finding snake skins in my yard and one on my screened in patio.  I hoped I had just brought it in on the bottom of my shoe.  In the meantime, the slithery thing was growing and growing.  By the time I found him in my garage, he (hoping it was a he and not a pregnant female) was about four feet long.  I ran into the house ... screaming of course ... and called critter control.  

My neighbor saw the snake come out of my garage (thank goodness) and crawl  between the brings on my front stoop and the house.  The water hose didn't get him out, he just enjoyed the jacuzzi feel.  The critter guy finally had to pull up a row of bricks to get him out.  

When I finally opened the front door after hearing the all clear, there was the critter guy with the snake curled around his arm.  I screamed again and slammed the door in his face.  He didn't get insulted until after I paid him.  

My robotic lawnmower scared the heck out of a really big fat one.  I never saw a snake move so fast, but I think I moved faster ... in the opposite direction.  

Living in S. Fla., I'm used to all kinds of bugs and lizards and even ugly ole' land crabs.  But snakes I cannot take.


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## Jen (Oct 28, 2008)

One day my fiance and i were sitting on the couch, and heard the cat running around along with a strange screetching sound.  We both get up - and of course, the cat is playing with a mouse.  I just stand there like an idiot while the mouse runs between my legs with the cat right behind it.  Where is Matt?  Yup-ON THE CHAIR.  What a wuss.  
The next twenty minutes were very The Great Outdoors-ish when they were trying to get the bat out of the house.  I had a tennis racket, while he lifted up each part of the sectional it was hiding under.  All in all, we got the little thing out alive, and my cat has never forgiven me for taking it away from her.


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## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

We had a mouse run through the house last winter. The cat took one look at it and jumped up into the nearest chair. He was scared to death!

Biggest wuss I've ever met


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## Guest (Nov 18, 2008)

luvmy4brats said:


> We had a mouse run through the house last winter. The cat took one look at it and jumped up into the nearest chair. He was scared to death!
> 
> Biggest wuss I've ever met


...and you thought letting him watch Mighty Mouse cartoons was cute. Well who's laughing now? me, that's who. 

My Fuzzy eats mice for breakfast, or when ever she can catch them and not release them in the house. I have managed to save a few of them.

Last summer she had a run on chipmonks/ground squirrels. I saved most of them. One little ungrateful furball did managed to nip me. I had second thoughts, but I still let him go.


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## Khabita (Oct 28, 2008)

We had a big (5 foot or so long) black rat snake living under our screened porch. (Prolly he still lives there, but we haven't seen him lately.) Anyway, my husband was doing some work under the porch one day, and he told me to give a holler if I saw the snake -- because, although he knows that the snake isn't poisonous, he didn't really want to share close quarters with it.

So I'm up sitting in the screened porch with the dog, and suddenly the dog jumps up and snatches at something in the corner. It's a little baby rat (not rat snake, rat), and he's about to chomp it. So I shriek "Oh my God" or some such thing, and then I dive for the dog, and then I hear this loud THUMP and remember that my dear husband is under the porch . . . and he's just raised himself up very very quickly and met the floor of the porch with his head.

He was just a LITTLE annoyed with me for causing all that ruckus and making him dent his skull and all, and there wasn't even a snake or anything. 

Oh, and the baby rat escaped. 

And we're still married. (That's me and the husband, not me and the rat.)


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## chynared21 (Oct 28, 2008)

Vampyre said:


> My Fuzzy eats mice for breakfast, or when ever she can catch them and not release them in the house. I have managed to save a few of them.


*You have a cat named Fuzzy I bet you'll name your Kindle too   *


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## Sandpiper (Oct 28, 2008)

LOL, Khabita.  I don't like to think of even a dog with a mouthfull of rat.  Per the title of this thread -- ACK!  (Ick.)  Your poor hubbie ultimately experienced the worst of the whole thing.


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## Guest (Nov 19, 2008)

Go to the pet picture thread to see her picture.  I also have a cat named TYPO and two dogs, Big Boy and Little Girl.  

I also have a stove, refrigerator, toaster, can opener, car, TV, washer, dryer, and a computer.  None of them have names.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Vampyre said:


> Go to the pet picture thread to see her picture. I also have a cat named TYPO and two dogs, Big Boy and Little Girl.
> 
> I also have a stove, refrigerator, toaster, can opener, car, TV, washer, dryer, and a computer. None of them have names.


Your cars don't have names? Ours do, my husband had names for some of his cars even before we met...

Betsy


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## Guest (Nov 19, 2008)

I've never been compelled to name nonbiological things.


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## Sailor (Nov 1, 2008)

Hey WisteriaC,

Glad to hear the mouse got out and didn't scare you. I am sure while you sleep the kitties will share a little tasty tidbit...

Here is a little Poem written by a cat:

Love them little mousies
Mousies what I love to eat.
Bite they little heads off,
and nibble on they tiny feet.


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## Guest (Nov 19, 2008)

Sailor, have you been spying on Fuzzy?


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## Sailor (Nov 1, 2008)

Vampyre said:


> Sailor, have you been spying on Fuzzy?


LOL, just have cats of my own so I know how they 'think'.

They need to wear Teninx's Brain Shield Foil over their heads
so I can't read their minds.


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## Sailor (Nov 1, 2008)

*Teninx's cat:*


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## Guest (Nov 19, 2008)

I don't dress my cats, they don't even like me putting flea collars on them

ueue nice pic


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## Sailor (Nov 1, 2008)

Vampyre said:


> I don't dress my cats, they don't even like me putting flea collars on them
> 
> ueue nice pic


my cats would claw me if I tried to dress them! 
Although one will curl up under the blankets at night with his
head on the pillow, then he'll sleep there all day like that.

Never into dressing my pets...but Kindle AKA KinKin only wears his leather!


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## robin.goodfellow (Nov 17, 2008)

Reading this thread has been a hoot, and now I feel marginally better about what happened to me last month....

I was packing to go to Disney World, and since it was cold-ish, I had been packing the car with the garage door closed.  I finally got everything loaded up and opened the garage door, and realized that I'd been stepping over a SNAKE for the past hour.  I went from standing barefoot in the garage to standing barefoot on the top of the car (Sway), shrieking into the cell phone for my dad to come over.

He was thrilled. Just thrilled.  (heavy sarcasm).  He hates snakes too.  His first suggestion was that I sell the house, snake and all.  Then his second suggestion was that I call some friends who have a cat and get them to come turn the cat loose in the garage.

He finally gave up (b/c I had not in all this time stopped shrieking into the phone) and used a shovel to toss the snake into the neighbor's yard.  He was not amused.  By his calculations, the snake was half the size of the average belt, and he felt it to be as menacing as dryer lint.  I thought it was like 9 feet long with fangs.

Stupid snake infested county.

~robin


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

In defense of snakes:

I am so glad to hear that your father did not do what most around here would, which was kill the snake!  For those of you with mice problems, black snakes are VERY good mousers.  And most snakes do not have fangs.

Not wild about mice, like snakes, but outside!

Betsy


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## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

sailor said:


> Hey WisteriaC,
> 
> Glad to hear the mouse got out and didn't scare you. I am sure while you sleep the kitties will share a little tasty tidbit...


So far the mice has been a little quicker than the cats. After two days with no sightings we thought it may have found a way outside but alas! Last night while we were watching a movie it ran out from under the tv set and dashed back into the heating vent. Sort of disturbed the tranquility of the moment to say the least.

I'm worried that I may be becoming fond of the little critter. My husband has drawn the line at having a pet mouse in the house.


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## Jen (Oct 28, 2008)

Oh, I can just picture Matt if a mouse ran out from under the tv - if he was up on a chair when one ran across the room, he'd probably be up on the couch console table then leap to the kitchen counter! I'd almost like for that to happen, just to see that. _almost._


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)




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## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

Betsy the Quilter said:


>


Betsy that is absolutely hilarious! I love being able to start the day with a good chuckle.

Thanks.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I was looking for something else, and had to stop what I was doing to post the link, it was too perfect for this thread!

Betsy


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## supermom (Nov 19, 2008)

We live in the country and normally we get a mouse or 2 in the house when it starts to get cold out, and if I am the unfortunate one to see the mouse it freaks me out so bad that it almost requires a stay in a local hotel until the mouse is caught.  I can't even go near the mouse section of the pet store without getting all freaky and nervous.


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