Of Mice and (Wo)men

I hope you're in the mood for an amusing tale.

Almost our entire staff team is living together in one house. Our regional directors, our five person EDGE team, and a volunteer are sharing the same address! So far it's been a blast! We're renting the former FSU staff's house while they are over seas, but there has been a lot of work to do to get things in order. We have a lot of unpacking to do, cleaning, and home improvements. We also have a pest problem. Jim discovered a few fuzzy friends under the kitchen sink last week, and I wasn't too worried about it- I figured once he put some traps down, that would be it. Well, I was wrong.

Lauren, my EDGE teammate and roommate arrived on Tuesday! I was excited to finally have her here! After a long day of funding, unpacking, dinner with the Go Week crew (the staff and student leaders of 4 campus ministries), and a staff meeting, once we returned home, we were all bone tired and needed to get some rest because we were starting freshmen move in early the next morning. We finally got to bed around midnight and set our alarms for 7 a.m. Only, it wasn't at 7 a.m. that we woke up, and it definitely wasn't by our alarms.

It was a little after 4 a.m. that I was awakened from sleep. I'm a light sleeper and so I woke up as I heard a strange noise in the room. I thought maybe I was dreaming, so I laid there in bed for a few moments to figure out if it was just in my head. But it wasn't! I heard the noise again! I should probably tell you that Jim had just built us a bunk bed, and I'm on the top- so I wasn't interested in getting out of bed if I didn't have to. But this noise confused me! I used my phone as a light from atop my bed, but couldn't really see anything. I peeked below and saw Lauren was still asleep, so I knew I was going to have to get out of bed and use a flashlight to find out what it was. In my head, I knew exactly what I was going to find. The sound seemed like it was the rustling of a plastic bag, and I knew that it was the birdseed bag I had in the room. There is only one thing that could be making that noise: a mouse.

I climbed down the bed and stumbled around the room in a blind stupor trying to find my flashlight, in doing so I woke up Lauren. "Are you looking for something?" she asked groggily. "Um, sort of." I said. "I heard a noise and I think there might be something in our room." She sat up quickly at that point, "Like a critter??"

I looked around and in the bag, but found nothing. So I climbed back up to the bed with the light in hand and waited. If I knew anything at all about mice, it was that he would be back. It didn't take long at all, about a minute before I heard the familiar rustling of the birdseed bag. "Did you hear that??" I whispered to Lauren. "Yes!" She said in a panic! I shined the light at the bag, and wouldn't you guess a furry brown field mouse climbed right out and scampered down the bookcase! I fumbled down to the ground once again and Lauren jumped out of bed! At this point, you can imagine we're screaming like little girls trying to find where the mouse disappeared to! We turn on the light, I hand her the flashlight and grab a trashcan to trap him. We looked all over the room, and I figured that he must have slipped under the door.

So the two of us tip toe out into the hallway, on a mouse hunt. The thing about mice is that they are fast and unpredictable, but they usually stick close to the walls. That meant that he was probably in the next room by the time we started searching for him. We slowly opened the door of the room next to us and I saw him! He stared up at me with his black and beady little eyes, frozen with fear. I screamed, "There he is!" and Lauren started dancing in place in hysterics! We must have been a terribly humorous sight to behold! The mouse darted under the dresser and I told Lauren to go to the other side and shine the light under and make noise to scare him out and I was going to trap him. She takes the flashlight and starts banging it against the dresser! We were making such a ruckus! The mouse finally came out, but neither of us saw it until it was too late! Under the door it went! Our teammate Candice was awake at this point and she came out to find out what was going on. We explained the mouse and had a third girl jumping out of her skin! We checked her room, but found nothing.

We decided to sit on the staircase and wait to see if he ran past us. We thought he was still upstairs, but he wasn't! It wasn't long before this bold little mouse started climbing the stairs below us! He was about 2 stairs away from us when he realized we were waiting for him, turned around and scampered off again! After another bout of girlish screams, we decided to wait in the room across from the stairs for him. It wasn't long before he was back! He poked his head up the final stair and looked right at us! This little guy just didn't quit! We moved too quickly and he was gone once again.

We waited for another 10 minutes, but decided to return to bed. We must have laid awake until 6 a.m. waiting for that little pest to come back. At one point, Lauren jumped out of bed screaming again! She had imagined (or dreamed?) that the mouse was climbing on her! Haha! What a way to start off the year! I would have never imagined our first night together as roommates would involve hunting down a pesky little brown mouse. We never did find him. He probably still shares the house with us.

Last night after another long night on campus, the four of us returned home and I saw something under the chair in the living room. I screamed for Ben, and Lauren and Candice started freaking out! He grabbed a flashlight and we're all yelling that there is something under that chair. He examined it closely and found that it was a doll's shoe! The laces looked just like a tail! Oh man, our adventures don't end on campus. This is going to be a great year :)