MICE!!!

So this is a story that many if not most of you have heard but since this blog is also the closest thing I have to actually keeping a journal I am going to record it here. :) My husband Greg is a tough guy. But he is deathly afraid of mice. Now I don't like them either but with Greg we are talking absolute and utter fear. When we lived in our old house I had been gone one Wednesday night at Young Womens and so when I came home we were sitting in the family room watching tv together when, for just a tiny second, I thought I saw something jump out from behind the entertainment center and then back behind it again. I of course say, "oh crap Greg I think we have a mouse!!!" and he responds, "Shut up!" I say, "no really I think I saw it just run behind the tv!" and he again replies, "Shut up! I saw it earlier and I was just going to pretend that I didn't, but now that you saw it too, I can't!!" :) We both agree that there is no way we can go to sleep knowing that this vile creature is running loose in our home! So Greg goes in search of weaponry. He comes back with racquetball racket and the hunt is now on. We lift the 2 ton entertainment center and slide it gently away from the wall, which of course sends the mouse running for safety, which causes Greg to throw his end of the entertainment center a good 3 feet in the air! So we follow the little bugger to the pantry, where we slowly start pulling out camping equipment and the other crap that is all over the floor, to find the filthy little beast. And find him we did! Of course, once again, he takes off running back to the family room, prompting Greg to throw the racket at the fleeing pest. The entire time Greg has been utterly silent, jaw clenched and eyes steeled in intense concentration. The mouse is now cowering like the vermin he is under the couch in the family room. So we devise a plan of attack, I stand on the front edge of the seat and grab the top of the back of the couch, leaning backwards slowly so as to tip the couch forwards and expose the hiding mouse. When I do this Greg has a view of him finally and suddenly, at 11:00 p.m., with my children in bed asleep, he raises his weapon and begins to attack while screaming a war cry like I have never heard! He hits the mouse with the racket at least 15 times, so hard that he bent the racket. The entire time he is attacking he is screaming, never once pausing for breath. At this point I am not sure which of them I am more afraid of. He finally stops and I peek over the couch to survey the carnage and I see a tiny little brown mouse that looks almost like he is sleeping. I told Greg to go get a shovel so we can scoop the mouse up and toss him outside. He leaves, silent once more, and returns carrying a very large pipe wrench that he has already begun adjusting. As I watch him I am thinking to myself, "now that is stupid, if he has to pinch the mouse in that pipe wrench he will have to get way closer to it than if he used a shovel like I suggested." As I am just finishing this thought the war cry begins again as my husband, the sweet loving man who cradles my babies so snug and secure begins to pound the dead mouse once again this time with the pipe wrench. He only takes about five hits this time to satisfy his desire to eradicate the threat. He then proceeds to very calmly get the shovel, scoop the mouse up, and chuck him out the front door to the middle of the street, where he is given a proper burial the next day when the city chip sealed over him. After Greg calmed down, knowing the mouse no longer posed a threat to him or his family, I asked him what he was thinking, screaming like that with the kids asleep and why did he need to hit the poor thing so many times? He looked at me puzzled and said, "I screamed? and I only hit it like twice didn't I?" I guess fear and adrenaline can really blind us sometimes and luckily for the rest of us it will provide for a hilarious story that cracks your spouse up for years to come! :)