mouse hockey

I have a bitter relationship with my housekeepers. Tonight, I saw evidence that the money spent on housekeepers should probably just go to makeup or one of those inner-thigh-cum-abs machines from home shopping network, when we lifted the couch. If you hire a housekeeper, your couch shouldn't have dust bunnies and junk under it. Period. Mine does. Why did we lift the couch? Because Prozac the cat had been sitting there, watching underneath it for a half hour, and I deduced that there must either be a mouse, or the biggest bad-ass spider in the world under there. And either way, it was coming out. "Honey, come here," I said. "Pick up the couch." He tugged on it. I snarled. "UP." He lifted it, and a cute little mouse scampered to the far end of the area. "It's going," I said and turned around. "I'll get a shovel." I have to explain something here. I am essentially a country girl. Woman if you grew up near the seventies, but the phrase has staying power. As a country girl, I don't think that you'd catch me living in the country without a shotgun and a few shovels. Some nice digging ones, and a nice flat one I can use to kill critters. You know? Recently, to the incredibly catty delight of some friends of mine on the local mother's club email list, a woman from Atherton posted hysterical notes to all 2,000 members. "Help!" she said. "I live in Atherton and there is a dead squirrel outside! Where can I hire someone for this?" The entire list was gratified to receive an additional posting, later that afternoon, saying "the nanny showed up and put it into a garbage bag." Yup. At any rate, we're not that type of household over here. But even as I thought of getting a shovel, I realized it wouldn't work. "Are you going to whack it?" said my husband, interestedly. (He's that type of domestic presence.) But I couldn't. If you're outside and it's dead, you just pick the thing up with a shovel (while distracting your toddler by pointing behind them and saying "look at the pretty bird!"). But if it's alive, even if you do pick it up with a shovel, you run the chance of just wrecking the hardwood floors. Not to mention, of course, you're essentially giving a hysterical little beast a high dive from which to burrow into a white couch. Or whatever. Ugh. And I just didn't want to whack it. Ugh. Mouse ... well, I won't go there. So I went outside and looked around. Finally settled for a broom. It took three rooms and several moved chairs, books, and an umbrella stand but we were finally ready. My husband batted him gently out from behind the umbrella stand and I broomed him across the floor. He got loose and ran across my toes. Ugh. But I got him. Frankly, I've never played hockey, but brooming a live mouse across a hardwood floor, around the oriental carpets, and out the back door was a rush. I felt like I'd scored a goal! Ten minutes later, Prozac came in and stared plaintively at the couch. Where *was* that mouse?