Critter Alert!

Julie went in the kitchen this evening to grab a knife for me, but instead calls me in telling me to “Come look”. We have a host of geckos, lizards, and whatnot in the kitchen so I go with the idea that it was one of our friends. Oh no! She points out this little mouse behind all of our clean dishes in our make-shift rack! She acts like its so cute! I tell her we have to catch it and get rid of it. She laughs and then laughs at me as I proceed to try and catch this mouse. So clearly I didn’t catch it. We return to the living room and continue our evening in front of the fan. About 20 minutes later the crazy mouse is joining us in the living room! This time I get a better container and proceed to chase the mouse around the living room and Julie’s room. At one point it even ran across my foot and I screamed. Julie found this very very funny. I think she enjoys me only for entertainment factors as life is always exciting with me around.

I even let Roxy in the house at one point to help hunt the mouse. Roxy will hunt the geckos and spiders each night, but did she even help with the mouse, NO! She wanted to play with me instead. I accidently stepped on her paw and she pulled the sit and stare at me while lifting up the paw. She is such a drama queen. She really isn’t hurt but she wants all the attention and knows that we will talk to her and pet her extra when she does this. I have to admit that it’s cute but extremely clever too. Eventually, I did catch the mouse.

After inspection of the mouse in the container, Julie suggested that we make it a classroom pet and we could show our classes. I told her the Director would just love that! Not to mention we would get blamed for having a dirty house (which we rent from the Director). So Julie has named the mouse Stuart and Stuart is in a Tupperware container on a shelf in the living room. I hope that I can release the mouse far from the house tomorrow (yes, this is my personal catch and release/relocation program in Africa. I’m not sure the Togolese will like that so let’s not tell them, ok).

I’m sure that tomorrow will bring the last adventure with Stuart, well I hope so.

Part 2
Stuart died in the night. Since Julie wanted to save him to show our students we just put the Tupperware container on the shelf in the living room. I had an idea that he might not have enough oxygen to make it through the night but I was not so keen on the idea of keeping him and so I just let it slide.
Julie accused me of murder this morning. Then today at lunch she realized that even though I tried to put oxygen in the container before I went to bed I knew that he wouldn’t make it through the night. She told me she was too tired to realize this last night and she knew that I knew all this information and just let it slide. We laughed about it and I took Stuart out for his burial in the yard this afternoon.

I should add that this morning Julie asked me if I’d been in the kitchen yet. I am beginning to dread this question. She told me that it was a gecko this time. It was really a lizard stuck in the kitchen sink. I think he fell off a rafter and couldn’t get out. Julie and I discussed the differences between geckos and lizards. Then I proceeded to catch him. He got away.

He returned this afternoon in the screen on the kitchen window and then again got away. It turns out he is a very wiggly little fellow. But then he hid under the refrigerator. Later he was making a break for the front door and Roxy perked up and almost had him for dessert. I locked her up and freed the wiggly lizard. At least one out of two was released. I would say my relocation program is doing ok right now. I hope it’s awhile until I have to use my critter skills again.