When we moved into our new house earlier this year it took a lot of work and planning to get it done. I signed so many papers at the closing that by the end I wasn’t even reading them anymore. It seemed that there was one form that verified your income and then another to verify that you had just verified what you verified a few pages back. We were diligent in researching the market value and having all the necessary inspections performed. With all the paperwork that came along with the purchase of the house not one paper notified us that the house came with a mouse living in the garage.

I believe this should have appeared on one of the many disclosures that we signed. It didn’t take long after moving in that we began to catch a glimpse of ole speedy Gonzales zip across the garage floor on occasion. I figured that one of our three dogs would make light work of him. After several months of sniffing everything in sight, none of the dogs were a match for the little speed demon.

I have always said that my wife is smarter than the average bear and this proved to be true as she used this situation to her advantage to get the cat that she had been asking for for three years. The ploy worked and we brought home a cat to take care of the mouse. Once we got home, I sat the cat down in the garage and the cat just looked at us like what do you want from me, I have a nap to take while the mouse ran freely back and forth waiting for someone to chase him. I wondered then why exactly was it that we were paying for animal food, treats, and toys and yet no one was willing to take the effort to catch the mouse.

I realized then that I had only heard of two cats in my life that couldn’t catch a mouse. Those were the cartoon cats of Tom and Sylvester and now I owned the third. At least Tom and Sylvester actually made the effort to catch something. My cat just sits on my wife’s lap and smirks at me while it eats its gourmet food knowing that I am powerless to make it chase the mouse. The other night I could swear I saw the cat look over my wife’s shoulder with tuna juice dripping from its mouth and flip me off with its middle toenail but I could have imagined it but I don’t think so.

I have always heard that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. I purchased an animal trap and lay in wait only to find the trap the next morning had been sprung and the bait gone but no mouse. After stealing my bait so many times that it seemed more like I was feeding the mouse instead of catching it I expected to find a note from the mouse asking to see a menu. However, the mouse became complacent and just that like he found himself locked in the trap.

I spent the next 20 minutes giving the mouse a speech about how persistence wins in the end and then realized that I was talking to a mouse and pretended to be singing when my wife walked into the room. We took the mouse a few miles down the road and set him free in the woods with the warning that if our paths crossed again one of us would not be coming back. At this point, I believe that would probably be me.