When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #28

Story #28 - White mice in the ivy – eek!

Do you have something that you are afraid of? For my mother it was mice! She hated mice!

This is another story about the patio. I had previously written how my mom planted ivy outside the living room wall just inside the patio. The ivy kept the wall cool. It was really pretty. It took awhile for it to grow and in a few years it covered the entire wall up to the roof and it was thick and green! My mom liked to go outside in the summer and hose down the concrete slabs in the patio to cool them off and then she would spray the hose up into the ivy. It was nice and cool. Well one day she went out there and just as she was coming back into the living room a baby white mouse ran out from the ivy and ‘into the house!’ She opened up her throat and let out a whooping loud ‘scream!’ We were in the house and ran out to the patio to see what was wrong! She was in the living room standing up on a chair hollering that there were mice outside in the ivy and one got in the house! I was about 12 years old. I thought it was kind of funny see my mom standing up on a chair having a tizzy over a little old mouse. I didn’t dare say anything though. I knew better! (I have to say right hear though, I was afraid of spiders when I was little. So with my mom being afraid of mice I should have been more sympathetic!) I think one of my brothers found the little baby white mouse that got in the house and took care of it. She still wouldn’t get down off that chair because there were more out in the ivy. Field mice are gray or brown. We figured someone had got the white one from a pet store and it got loose. It found its way into our patio and into the ivy. There were baby mice and were pretty little. I grabbed the garden shovel that was near the stairs that led up to the roof. I can remember I was wearing thongs. Some people call them slippers. I saw the baby mice and they started to run and I took the shovel and chopped off all their heads! I got the mother mouse and chopped off her head too. I took seconds and I had them taken care of. Then I told my mom it was safe and that I had killed all the mice and they were gone. I threw them in the garbage can. She got down off the chair. For a long time afterwards when she went out to the patio, she always inspected the door before she opened and closed the living room door!

Now that I look back on this story. It was kind of sad that I killed all those mice. But they do multiply very fast. So we had to get rid of them. Fast forward, it’s now June 11, 2008, years later since that happened. Well, last night I was looking out my kitchen window at the pond and the rock wall above it and I noticed that something moved. I looked really quick and I saw a long tail disappear into the rocks at the top! I looked again and sure enough there was a small rat! Yuck! I hate rats and mice! I am not afraid of them I just don’t like them! David was over and he and dad both looked out the window and there it was looking out and then it turned around and went back into the little cave the rocks made. Today dad, your grandpa, brought home a rattrap. I don’t know if that rat is still out there. Its color was dark gray. It looked cute looking out of the rocks yesterday, but I still don’t like rats! We have our home up for sale and I don’t want rats here! I guess in the morning we’ll see if it went for the bait. I just hope it went over the fence somewhere else!

Well now that I'm posting this story it is August 18th and I can report that we never saw the rat again and the trap was empty for over a week. Thank goodness! It found greener pastures I guess. I really didn't want to kill the rat. I just didn't want it in our yard!