Big Bug

“Daddy! There’s a big bug in my toy room!”

Little One is shaking me awake. Through fat, bleary eyes I squint at the alarm clock. It’s 3:24 in the afternoon. Last night I lost a major battle in the Police Action Against Insomnia, waking a little after 2:15 a.m. Indistinguishable from a zombie or Frankenstein’s monster, I lumbered about all morning, getting Little One to VBS, taking Patch with me on a couple of errands, refueling with some Diet Coke-aine, then retrieving my oldest from school.

Then, a blessed nap at 2 p.m. “I’m going to set the alarm for 4,” I say to Little One. “Here. Watch Monsters, Inc and don’t wake me ’til then.” Patch is napping, and so will I.

Until the Big Bug episode.

So, realizing I’m not going to get that extra, desperately-desired 36 minutes of shut-eye, I haul my carcass outta bed. We go downstairs to her toy room. “It went under there!” she shouts, a little scared but more outraged, pointing at her vertical toy chest.

I slide the bottom drawer out and inspect. Most likely she saw an ant, but you never know. Occasionally we get spiders in the house, and on rare occasions we get a big hairy one. But I don’t see anything. I tell her so, then I make her get down on the floor and look with me, because seeing is believing.

“Whatever it was, it’s gone. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

I’m up. Time for chores. Clean up lunch, install Skype on the PC, call Grammy, wake up Patch, change her, feed ’em both an early cheese mac dinner, get Little One ready for soccer practice, go to soccer practice, go to the playground, go home, bathe ’em both, read ’em stories, and put them down by 8. The wife meets me at soccer practice and helps with the bathing, but she leaves for movie night with her girlfriend (we alternate these nights – my turn was seeing Predators with my buddy).

Then, the house is blissfully quiet. I’m tired, but I want to put some mileage on Seven Pillars. I go downstairs to grab it, and while I’m sitting at the dining room table, I catch something big moving at my feet, from the dining room to under the sofa in the living room.

Something big, black, and fast.

I’ve seen this before. Yes, I’ve seen this before.

I got a mouse in the house.

I’ve seen this before; maybe not this particular fella, but I’ve seen his relations. Usually I hear them scurrying above the ceiling tiles over me when I’m in the basement writing office. Occasionally I find one stranded in the garbage under the sink, and I toss him out at the far corner of my backyard.

Sighing, I make a note to call the pest control people. We have an annual contract with them; every quarter they spray the house to keep ants out, and put those mouse deterrent mabobs in our basement and garage. I can’t remember when they were last here, so they’re probably overdue.

Poor Little One! Why did I ever doubt her? I also make a note to tell her, first thing in the morning, that she was right, but her Big Bug was really a House Mouse.