SNAP!!!!!!!!!!!

So, for the past 6 hours, I have been working on semi-annual sales tax refunds and non-profit cost allocations for a client. My mind is fried and my eyes are glazed. I was starting to feel kinda zombified, until just a minute ago, I heard a SNAP from the kitchen. All this week, I have dreaded hearing that sound.

On Sunday, I discovered that a teeny creature had chewed on a spatula in my utensil drawer. When I found the teeth marks, I was not only filled with disgust, but also with paralyzing fear. I knew what creature had invaded my kitchen and eaten my spatula... it was a mouse!

I am terrified of mice. I am not afraid of snakes or spiders or any other creature. But I have a horrible, stay-awake-all-night-in-panic fear of mice. This phobia developed when I was little and late one night in the dark I awoke to hear scratching noises in my bedroom. Night after night, I was awakened by the scratching noises which made me cry because I honestly thought that there were monsters in my room that were going to crawl up on the bed and eat my eyeballs out. This frustrated my dad because each night I would wake him up with my crying. One night, I went to a slumber party at a friend's house and while I was gone, my parents set several mousetraps in my bedroom. The next morning the traps were filled! Even the one underneath my stuffed animal bunk bed. I knew it!!! There were monsters in my room.

A few years ago, very early one morning, I heard my cat running around the house and she knocked over a dining room chair. When I got up to see what was going on, I saw that she had a mouse in her mouth. To my horror, she dropped it and jumped into bed to go to sleep. The mouse ran under the sideboard and huddled in the corner AND I PANICKED! I knew my dad went into at work at 7am, so I called him in tears. I told him what had happened and he suggested that I get a plunger. I asked "Dad, what do I do with a plunger?" to which he replied, "Just plunge it to death." I couldn't do that, so he suggested that I trap it with the plunger and a piece of cardboard and take it outside. So, after I caught the mouse and picked it up using the cardboard and the plunger, I really freaked out. The only thing separating this mouse from my bare hand was a piece of cardboard and I started screaming. At that point (it's 7:15am and I was wearing what I had slept in - a t-shirt and underwear), I bolted out of the house with the plunger and the cardboard screaming and crying and I just kept running down the street. I didn't know what to do. I finally stopped and threw the plunger, the cardboard and the mouse into the bushes. Some guy who was stopped at the stoplight jumped out of his truck and ran toward me saying "Are you alright!?! Do you need help!?!?" I was still crying but I told him that I was ok and that I had caught a mouse.

So, anyway, this week when I discovered the bite marks on my spatula, I called my dad who drove from Burlington on Monday morning to set mouse traps around my kitchen. (My hero!) I caught one on Tuesday morning. My dad had to come back to Durham to dispose of the mouse. I cannot get closer than 10 feet even to a dead mouse. This morning, I heard another trap go SNAP, but then I heard the mouse wrestling with the trap and it escaped. I inspected the trap this morning and found some blood by the trap. But just a few minutes ago, I heard another SNAP that jolted me from my accounting fog. I peeped into the kitchen and saw that I got another one. Dad, will you come over tomorrow to dispose of this mouse? I cannot go into the kitchen.

Maybe I need to get another cat.