Twas the night before work

‘Twas the night before work, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, except at least one fucking mouse;

The blankets were draped on the bed with such care,

In hopes that St. Hypnos soon would reappear;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds;

While visions of Minecraft danced in their heads;

And mama in her flannel jammies, and I in my skivvies

Had just settled down at 10:30 for a regular night of zzzzzzzs.

When out of nowhere there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew with a scream,

Tore open the window and raised up the screen

The moon revealed nothing of what noise I had heard,

I looked for a woodpecker, a squirrel or a bird.

It was 4:45, what animal could it be?

Or was it the heater, nothing I could see.

I used my flashlight in the AC vent, but nothing did appear.

Should I remove the screws and see if an animal does peer?

Mama took to the attic, to look for animals, droppings or nests

And got frightened by a skeleton – a sparkly one from Halloweens past.

There were piles of wigs and hats, costumes galore.

And empty boxes and baby things, stuff we should no longer store.

Alas, there were no animals, or else we frightened them away.

But no worries. They would appear at 4 a.m. the next day.

We bought a few traps, all shiny and taut.

And filled them with vittles, to temp them to get caught.

Another sleepless night passed with no clues of the resident,

so we called the exterminator who left a glue trap as a present.

He climbed up the ladder and gave a thumbs up,

While our friends at Deegen Roofing left behind lots of nails, they also left the roof tightly sealed up.

He found no animals in the soffits, nor the roof nor the floors,

And said we should call him when we knew if it was flying squirrels.

The snap trap worked the very next day; the poor wide-eyed creature was a stiff dead mouse,

So we moved two traps side to side to catch the mouse’s spouse.

The next day we looked and one trap was the same.

The other trap, though, was missing from the frame.

It left us with mysteries, such as what did it catch and did the animal survive?

Where is our trap and when will the smell of rotting flesh arrive?

Before bedtime that night, we checked the glue board,

And found a live mouse, Mama said it couldn’t be ignored.

I, as a scientist, was a seasoned mouse killer,

But those lab mice have no rabies and without gloves I’m in peril.

I managed to kill it using the snap trap,

but it stuck to the glue board, which was sticky as sap.

Mama went back to Home Depot to stock up on more,

And baited them again, as a very big lure.

I know one more’s out there, I heard it at 2,

Another poor sleep, I’m going to end up with the flu.

Mama set the new traps and we hope with all our might,

That we’ll soon have happy sleeptime for all, and to all a good night.