Interesting Habits of Wildlife in Australia or Why I Now Use Baileys as Cream in My Tea

My morning began as most do in my house.  I opened my eyes and immediately grabbed the precious - my iPhone, and began checking news, weather and of course, Facebook.  I know, I have a slight addiction problem.  I really don't care.  The girls came barging in to rat each other out, cry about having wake up, complain about the global economy....actually not sure about the last one, to be honest I stopped listening about 30 seconds into the melee.  I shooed them out so I could get dressed.  About 15 seconds later Connor came running in, "Mommy, do you know the tall curtains we have downstairs?"  Yes Connor, I've heard of them.  "Well, um, well, there's a mouse on top of them!"  O-kay.  Quite honestly, I was not expecting that.  But then again, I couldn't say it was impossible.

So I throw on my shirt, and head down the steps.  We get halfway down the steps and Connor starts screaming, "See, See, See!!!"  Well, no.  I don't.  I bend down and peer over the railing and look about 15 feet away and damn it all, there it is.  The Australian Hopping Mouse.  It's about the size of an American Field Mouse only it has bigger ears and it hops like a kangaroo.  Only it has a problem.  It's on top of the curtain rod located near the top of our extremely high ceiling.  I think about 14 feet. 

Of course Connor is the one that sees it. I would have come downstairs and missed the little bastard completely.  But not Connor.  Nooooo.  She saw it because there was Monty sitting on the floor staring up at it.  Monty must have brought it in to play with and it got the best of him and ran up the curtains.

Ok.  So now I have a problem. 

1. I have a damn live mouse stuck inside my house.
2. It's waaaaayyy up high and no real way to get to it.
3. Ted has already left for work.
4. Connor is starting to slowly become unglued and turning into Sybil.
5. I have not had any tea

Right.  I called Ted on the train for suggestions.  Captain Genius suggests throwing cat at mouse.  I was actually glad that he then went through a tunnel so it cut off the stream of profanities I vomited at him.  Note to self: come up with alternative meanings for words for Tessi.  So I get Teddy up and ask him if he had any ideas.  Poor kid, he also needed tea and needed a few minutes to figure out his name and what the Hell I was talking about.  He offered to go up the ladder and try and get it.  Now, before the good mothers of the world start crying fowl at me sending my child to face the demon, bite me.  Go ahead, call me names, turn me in.  I don't care.  It was him or me and I chose him.  He offered.  It wasn't coerced.

The next twenty minutes was quite possibly the most calamitous of not only my life but I dare say, most peoples lives. 

I get the ladder and Teddy and I begin the process of unfolding it.  It's one of those 600 different position ladders and the two of us, plus Tessi "helping" we finally get it set up to have Teddy get the mouse.  Teddy starts to climb towards Mickey and then Connor bellows, 'KOOKABURRA!!!!"  I start looking around the living room because I'm sure it's come in too.  But no.  She's pointing out the window.  So Teddy, Tessi and I, like the lemmings we are stop, turn and walk towards the window.  Sure enough, there's a Kookaburra outside.  It takes me a full 20 seconds before I realize, "Jesus, we LIVE here, we see Kookaburras all the time!  We have to get the mouse!!"  Back at the task at hand.

Mice, no matter what continent they are from, do NOT like having strange people try to pick them up.  This mouse started running back and forth along the curtain rod squealing it's head off.  At one point he slipped and fell down a bit onto the upper window sill and Teddy (I helped!! I herded it with a long pole) was able to coax it onto his hand and he started the climb down the ladder to take it outside.  Sadly though, the mouse decided to bite Teddy (no broken skin) and then Teddy yelling, flinging the mouse back onto the curtain and the bastard scurried back up to the top.

I've sent the girls out of the room to damper the sound of the screaming, Monty is running back and forth trying to glare the mouse to death, Sasha starts barking at a neighbor walking down the street and that's when I noticed that Teddy's new Siamese Fighting Fish wasn't moving.  I run over, "Oh Christ, no!!  Don't' be dead!!!!"  Then Teddy comes over, "He's not dead, I taught him to do that"  What?  I look back, the damn fish wiggles 1 fin....twice.  Then stops.  Then the other fin...twice again.  Then he starts moving for real.  What. the. Hell. Never mind, I've got Mickey running around 14 feet above my head.
This is when we learned about the hopping.

The mouse began running along the curtain rods, and then hopped between them.  All four.  Back and forth. Speedy Gonzalez here is racing along the rods and when he gets to the end he hops to the wall, bouncing off onto the next rod.  It was like watching those people in LA who spend time bouncing off of walls to climb up buildings.  He's running and hopping and squealing, did I mention the squealing?

I get the super long broom and head towards the window and that's when I noticed that Damn Dog has peed on the floor.  For the first time in my life, that was not the most horrifying thing in my immediate area.  So I race to the window, Teddy has repositioned the ladder, has climbed up, catch reach so I put the broom by the mouse just to stop him from running.  Speedy smacks into the broom, falls off onto my sewing machine and stops cold.  I fling open the sliding doors and put on my best Dave Winfield stance and swing for the cheap seats.  I moved him 2 feet but at least he's by the door.  Teddy pops him outside and chases him out into the bush.

Connor comes out of hiding, "Yea!! We got the mouse!"

I looked at her, didn't say a word and went into the kitchen and poured my tea.

I'll admit it.  After I took the kids to school I went to the shops and bought champers and a tub of chocolate frosting.  Judge all you want.  I'll be sitting in the corner and blinking a lot.