A Mouse in Our House (with 9 Lives!)

I have a few fears. Quite a few fears, actually. I'm scared of snakes and lizards. I don't like spiders. I loathe wasps. I am the biggest sissy alive when it comes to nervous horses. Chickens and birds of all manner alarm me. I worry constantly about something happening to someone in my family. I'm afraid of dying. I am extremely scared of heights and have claustrophobia to boot. And I am absolutely terrified of mice. By terrified, I mean the kind of terror that makes your heart jump in your throat, the kind of terror that sets your heart racing and your blood  pressure spiking, puts your hair on end. To put it mildly, mice give me the creeps!
So you can imagine the drama and trauma that occurred last week when we had a mouse in our house. Yes! A mouse right inside our house! And whoever came up with the phrase, "as quiet as a mouse" didn't meet this mouse, who was not quiet at all.
Let me take you back to the beginning of the story, where it all began...
It happened on a beautiful summer afternoon. Brailey and I had just been grocery shopping, and were hauling the groceries inside. As kids are prone to do, Brailey left the door open. And of course, here came Rose, one of our beloved cats. Brailey loves it when the cats come in - she is their biggest fan! She was quite delighted that Rose had snuck in. She happily went to get her, chattering all the way, "Rose, you silly girl. You know you can't be in the house, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Suddenly, she let our a deafening scream, for Rose had brought in with her a mouse. Hence, a mouse was now in our house.
At this point, however, I did not realize it was still ALIVE and WELL. And so I went to get it, thinking it was likely near death if Rose had brought it in. Wouldn't you have thought the same thing? So the next person to scream in the house was me, as I came around the corner and saw the mouse skittering along the floor with Rose in hot pursuit behind it.
Once my heart stopped its racing and my blood pressure settled down, I figured the cat would get the mouse and we would be rid of it. But that is not what happened. Oh no, that is not what happened at all. Instead, the mouse ran under the washer and dryer. Great.
And so off we went, that evening, after cautiously making our way out the door. We returned a couple of hours later. It was Britt's turn to have the daylights scared out of him, next. Shortly after we arrived back home, Britt was in the bathroom, and out of nowhere, here came the mouse. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!" he yelled. And then the mouse ran down the hallway and into our master bedroom. Thank God, thank God, thank God Brady was home this night. He walked in the door right as the little B's watched the mouse run into our room. And thankfully, the mouse was found and Brady killed it and put it in a plastic bag and threw it in the garbage. I found this a bit odd, but was so relieved to have the mouse gone that I put the worry out of my head.
This is not the end of our story, though...
Praise be, we all got a good night of sleep without the worry of a mouse in the house, (alive at least). The next morning, I got up, drank my first cup of coffee, and thought, "I'd better get that trash out of the house with that stinky mouse in it." And so I lifted the lid, pulled the bag up, and out dropped the mouse, right at my foot, and away it skittered, under the stove!
I screamed, dropped the trash and Brady came running. I explained the situation to him, not happily, as you might imagine. He was leaving, and I was stuck with a mouse in my house, alive and well! What in the world was I going to do?
Well, I'll tell you what I did. I went into my office to do some work and drink my second cup of coffee. Not long after I had sat down, I heard a rustling sound, accompanied by a squeak-squeak. My feet shot up into my chair and my heart resumed its pounding. That damn mouse was in my office! But not for long... He rustled and squeaked his way right into Brailey's room! Brailey was sleeping, but not soundly, because she had heard my scream from earlier. She, too, heard the mouse, which went under her bed. She came out and said, "Mom, I think the mouse is under my bed!" We brought the only cat we could find, Gaga, and put her in Brailey's room, hoping she would get the mouse. She didn't.
Shortly after this, Britt woke up and came out of his room. And shortly after he came out of his room, we discovered the mouse was in his room! We moved Gaga into Britt's room and went to have breakfast. As the little B's sat there, once again we heard the skittering and squeaking noises. And there was the mouse, running along the wall in the living room.
By this point, I knew it was up to me. The poor little thing was field mouse, and he was as terrified as us, I am sure. I don't like to kill things. I'm not a hunter. But on this day, I had to kill my first mouse. And so I got my broom, the little B's moved the couch for me, and all of sudden there he was back on the other wall, and we watched him running back and forth and back and forth and under the TV and back out and I gathered up my courage and I whacked him with the broom! And he jumped up and down and I whacked him again and he kept jumping and I kept whacking and the B's were yelling "Ahhhhh!" And Rosin was chasing Gaga, who ran back to the bedrooms and I yelled "Die you son of a bitch, die!" and kept whacking until he finally stopped jumping. It seemed like hours! He was one hell of a tough mouse, let me tell you.
His nose was still twitching, at this point, but Britt helped me scoop him onto the dustpan, then accidentally dropped him and we all screamed again and then re-scooped him up and Britt threw him outside. Britt is convinced he is actually the one who killed him, because the mouse hit the tree when he threw him from the dust pan, and that is when his nose stopped twitching.
Believe it or not, the little guy continued to disturb us. That afternoon, as I was watering flowers, I stepped right on him! "Crunch," right under my foot. I screamed again, the morning's trauma still fresh in my mind. Brailey confessed she had done the same thing earlier, and said, "That mouse is still torturing us, even in death!" I had Britt come and scoop him over the fence for us, and we all breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Am I a sissy, you ask? Yes. I certainly am. But guess what? I ADMIT IT! And now the kids know why it is important to keep the doggone door shut. My mom had a similar situation happen to her with her cat Charlie a couple of years ago - he actually brought a snake into her house! My dad just happened to see him do it, though, and got the snake out quickly. My dad  is much tougher than I am, though, and not scared of snakes nor of mice. I didn't like killing the poor little feller, but it had to be done. I mopped and vacuumed the floors, sterilizing as best I could, trying not to let the germ phobia I have overtake my mind completely.
And now you know the story of the mouse in our house. Have you ever heard of a mouse surviving so many deaths? I pray it never happens again - my nerves might not be able to handle it!