There's a mouse in my house!

Speaking of fruits and nuts, I have been trying to kill the little terrorist mouse that is, well, terrorizing me and Devil Dog on a nightly basis. To be honest, it is terrorizing me, Devil Dog, the rat terrier, could care less. The mouse and he are thick as thieves, and that is exactly what that furry little bastard is, (the mouse, not Devil Dog, although I know for a fact that Devils Dog's mother was not married to Devil Dogs father, but that is another story) a thief! A borrower who has no intention of ever returning the goods.

The other night I heard a strange scraping sound on my little dining table, which is in my living room and bedroom as my house is a studio. I assumed that the mouse, a nightly visitor, had gotten into the dog food bag and got herself a piece of dog kibble and taken it up on the dining table to dine in style. (I used to leave the kibble in the bowl overnight as Devil Dog thinks of dog food as poison and never eats all his kibble. The mouse would come and take kibble at night. I would hear her playing in the bowl.) When I heard her on the table, I turned on the light and she ran into the kitchen.

I have a little porcelain basket with tiny porcelain vegetables in it. It is on the dining table. The other day I noticed that it looked empty. I rearranged the veggies to make the basket look fuller. I tried to remember what vegetables I had in the basket. Asparagus, 2 kinds of lettuce, a cabbage, a green onion, ear of corn, chile pepper, a radish. Hmm, I thought I had 2 bell peppers, one red and one green. I only saw the red one. I had dropped the basket once and broken a couple of veggies so I thought maybe that could be the reason the green pepper was missing.

Last night I was washing the dishes and put my bare foot between the kitchen cabinets, where the mouse has a tunnel to run into, whenever I turn on the light and try to catch her in action. My toe hit something small. I bent over, picked it up, and lo and behold, it was the tiny green bell pepper!

Now I don't know if the mouse thought that it was just her size and perfect for her and wanted to take it to her nest to add to her decor, or if she thought it was real, but then abandoned it when she found it was not as delicious as it first appeared. I would be interested to see just how she has outfitted her humble abode. She is kind of sub letting from me. I think I should charge her rent.

Unfortunately, my cheap Mexican mousetraps are not working. The mouse adores cookies. Every night I put a cookie in the trap and the next day it is gone. I have the traps in the closet. I hear the mouse in the closet and grit my teeth waiting for the awful snap and squeal of the poor mouse, but that never happens. After the scrabbling noises abate, I breath a sigh of relief. Of course, the more the mouse seems to have a personality, the less I want to kill her. She now looks at me as the kind lady that gives her cookies. She probably laughed to herself after the bell pepper incident. I bet she thought I was playing a practical joke on her.