An Unexpected and Uninvited "Guest"

Tuesday morning, Russ and I were sitting at the table having breakfast and talking about the day. We were very excited to think about going to the airport to pick up Ryan from his trip to Utah. Suddenly, Russ stands up and says to me, "You need to go upstairs!"

I thought he was telling me I better start getting ready and get on with the day. Of course, I didn't think he should be telling me what I should do, so I didn't do it. Again, he said "You need to go upstairs!" After about the fourth time, I realized that something was wrong, and then I realized that he had probably seen a lizard in the house. I made it up the stairs in world record time.

He searched and searched in the pantry, around the kitchen, but couldn't find anything. He didn't have his glasses on when he saw this "movement" in the kitchen, so he wasn't sure what was going on. Finally he had to give up, because there was just nothing there.

We talked about it (at length) and he convinced me that he wasn't even sure he had seen anything, because he didn't have his glasses on. I decided that we indeed did have a lizard in the house, because Reyna had left a door open about two inches the night before, and it was open for several hours.

Lizards can't move very fast on marble floors, they are too slick, and they also can't climb marble stairs, so I felt relatively safe upstairs in the family area of the mission home. I was on the lookout, as always, for movement or signs of lizards.

This morning I went downstairs to get Russ some breakfast and pack a lunch for him because he is going to do interviews all day. Somehow I just couldn't bring myself to go in the pantry. I made the lunch and put all the things out on the counter. I put the other stuff for breakfast on the table, and was just about to brave the pantry. I figured I'd turn on the light first and check it out. As I turned toward the pantry, I saw a dark little body go across the floor - fast! Another world record upstairs - as I yelled to Russ that it was in the pantry to the right.

Russ, bless his heart, went in and cleared out everything on the lowest shelves of the pantry. As he moved a roll of wrapping paper off the bottom shelf - a mouse jumped out! Russ had already shut the door to the pantry, so the mouse was not able to escape this way. There is a tiny gap between two of the bottom shelves, so the mouse headed for the gap.

So now Russ has the mouse trapped in this gap in the shelves. There is no other way out (I HOPE!) - so Ryan stood guard while Russ found something the right size to keep the mouse in there. Right now the mouse is trapped under the shelving in the pantry, buying us some time to get a trap or some D-Con or something.

I'm going to tell Reyna about this when she gets here today - so she won't move the barrier. My Spanish is not that good, but I'm going to do the best I can to let her know not to move anything. I'll let you know what happens next.........