Of Mice and Lizard

Monday evening, I was walking around my house barefoot, putting some things away in my “kitchen.” Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something scurrying from one corner of the room to the other. “Must be time to mop the floors,” I thought. Every once in awhile, if I go too long without cleaning the floors, a little mouse shows up to sneak crumbs. Sometimes he turns up in the bedroom, sometimes in the backroom where I cook. I don’t have a table to cook on, so my hot plate sits on the ground and sometimes I miss some of the splattered food when I clean up the floor around the hot plate. He’s just a tiny little thing, two and a half inches long and an inch and a half high. He always keeps near the walls and runs away if I make any movement. Since his visits are infrequent and only after 9 at night, I let him take what he wants, making sure to mop the floors the next day so they’re not as inviting the next night.

Even though he keeps to himself, I didn’t want to risk him running over my toes as I was walking around, so I decided to slip on my tennis shoes. Stepping on the heel, I just put them on part way and continued getting ready for bed. But a few minutes later I felt something on my toe. I thought maybe there was a leaf in the bottom of it, or possibly a cricket. So I pulled my foot out of the shoe to check it out. Immediately a big green lizard scrambled out. He ran right into the kitchen and straight into the mouse. I heard a squeak and some rustling under my pile of grocery bags then saw a small furry streak head towards one corner and a long green one into the opposite one. Not wanting to deal with it, I shut the door on them and went to bed knowing they’d find their way outside by morning.

When I woke up the next day, I opened the door and saw the lizard curled up in a corner of the room sleeping. The mouse, as usual, was nowhere to be seen. A few hours later, when I went to dump out my dirty dishwater, I noticed that the lizard had gone. But as I was emptying my water outside, I saw something dark floating at the bottom. At first I thought it was part of an onion peel, but as the water drained out, I realized that it was the mouse! I have no idea how he got into my dish water, as the lip is a good 7 inches off the ground and it wasn’t sitting against a wall. I think I’m going to miss the poor little guy. But at least he had a good last meal…I had made spaghetti that night.