Invasion of the dog-food snatchers

Stuart and Barbara are gone, but a few nights before their departure, Stuart saw what he said was a small rodent peeking out from behind the TV cabinet. The wife - who I will henceforth call Elvi because she does not mind blowing her cover in this blog's comments - pooh-poohed him.

Two night ago, I was up late watching the History Channel, and I heard what sounded like someone playing with the power cords and cables behind the TV cabinet.

Ordinarily, I'm a big wussy, and this was an ordinary night. So I just kinda shook the TV cabinet while guarding my legs with a throw pillow. The creepy noise stopped. My duty done, I went to bed.

Yesterday, in daylight, I moved the TV cabinet, which is less impressive than it sounds because its on casters on a hardwood floor.

Apparently, we do have at least one mouse. I saw no animal, but the floor behind and previously below the TV cabinet was littered with mouse droppings. There were also two huge piles of dog food, maybe five cups worth in total. I guess the mice sneak over to the dog's dish, steal a nugget of dry dog food, and bring it behind the TV cabinet. And they do that a lot. I would love to know if it's a clan of thieves or just one very industrious mouse. I wish I'd snapped a picture, but Elvi (the wife, remember?) cleaned the mess up after coming home from the ballet.

Beside the dog food and mouse feces, the floor behind the cabinet was covered dust and dirt, pounds of samoyed hair, and many lost toys. The latter included misplaced plastic missiles, pieces of a Thomas the Tank Engine train set, and cards from the Blue's Clues board game.

Elvi was wary of setting out mousetraps and suggested Child Two (still anonymous) might have a hard time dealing with dead fuzzy things, having recently lost a guinea pig as well as two hamsters a year ago. She suggested live traps.

I asked Child Two. She had no problem with it, and displayed an unusual interest in finding out exactly how the mousetrap works.

I'm off to the hardware store tonight.

Bonus toe update:

The toenail refuses to let go on the right side. I had to give in and cut it in half lengthwise becuse the loose left side of the toenail had bent and the point had been digging into my toe when I wore socks.

Bonus spite update:

I would have linked the dog food store and brand in my post, but the company provides nothing in English online. C'est la vie.