This morning–just like every morning–I walked into Mia’s room, turned the lights on, and drew the curtains back. “Good morning,” I told her. “Time to wake up.” There was no sign of Mia,  but her comforter started to wriggle. I tossed her clothes on her bed and opened the closet door to grab her socks. I screamed when I saw movement. A tiny brown ball of fur scurried across the hanging bar. he stopped when he got to the end and stared me down. He was terrified, while I was just startled. I almost felt bad for him. I snapped the picture, then he ran back to the other side of the rail, jumped down into the corner, and disappeared.

The whole scene stirred a memory of Jamie and me in our downtown apartment right after we got married. We were going to sleep when we heard claws scraping a shoebox that was under our bed. We both sat right up, wide-eyed. It wasn’t a gentle scratching. It was a loud scraping that could only be made by dragon-sized claws. I was standing on the bed and coerced Jamie into getting a broom. He ran to retrieve it, turned the light on, and then joined me on the bed. I glanced over to our mirrored closet door and saw a ball of brown fur that had to weigh five pounds scurry along the floor to hide in the corner. I screamed, then sighed. I recognized the color pattern on that ball of fur. Arthur, our pet rabbit, had learned how to get out of his cage on his own. Like the mouse, he was a lot more scared than we were.

This morning wasn’t as jarring as that experience had been. It was only a tiny little mouse this time. It’s a difficult decision to kill them when they look so sweet and innocent. Mice are cute, but they’re dirty. This tough decision is bound to happen when you live in the country, and this is one of the reasons why we have a cat. I took Abby kitty to the closet to put her on the scent. Hopefully she will capture our uninvited visitor, or at least scare him away.