The One With The Cat, The Mouse and the Jam Jar

Out of all of us in the Random household I'm always telling Bob Cat that she's no bother, because bless she is no bother.

Well she was no bother until the other day. 

I knew she was stalking something from the moment we got up, but I thought it was a spider. She would hunker down then leap about, next she'd stop very still and wait with her nose pressed to the floor desperately trying to look under the sofa.

I left her to it as she's a skitty kitty and always darting about so I didn't take too much notice, and then later I forgot all about it.

It was after I'd picked the boy up from school and we'd returned home that things developed. 

I went into the kitchen to put the kettle on and get him a snack when I heard the boy calling me from the lounge,

"Mummy. We have a problem' came the fateful words.

'What is it darling?' I replied thinking it was probably that I hadn't put Frozen on yet!

The boy joined me in the kitchen.

'Mummy. There's a rat.'

WHAT??????

It'd all gone a bit Fawlty Towers. 

I raced into the lounge. Luckily it wasn't a full scale outbreak of the bubonic plague but there in the middle of the living room floor was a small grey/brown mouse lying on his side and not looking too lively. 

I deduced it's presence was Bob's work from earlier. Bless Oscar, but at 17 years old with the best will in the world he'd do well to catch a cold let alone a mouse.

The mouse hadn't been there when we first got in, so he must still be alive to come out from under the chair, where I assumed he'd been hiding since Bob's stalking spree that morning. So I took it he was playing dead.

The cats? Oh they were nowhere to be seen. Neither use nor ornament those two. They were asleep on the bed. 

'Can you get rid of it please Mummy?' asked the boy. 

He wasn't scared, just inconvenienced. This apparently dead mouse was currently lounging all over his Octonauts Deep Sea Octolab and he wanted to be getting on with his adventure thank you very much. There are no mice in the ocean. They are not legitimate sea creatures. We'll gloss over the fact Captain Barnacles is a polar bear; mice are not part of the game. 

I made that noise you do when you don't know what to do. You know the one. That sort of whining,

'Errrrrrrrr... ummmmmmm.....ahhhhhhh......'

Then a flash of inspiration struck me. I ran to the recycling and grabbed a jam jar and lid. 
The offending rodent was still laying motionless on the carpet so I tiptoed towards it and scoped Mr Mouse up with the jar. I popped the lid on the top and moved quickly to the front door, where I let the little fella go into the front garden.

All the time the boy was following my adventures and when it was done he clapped his hands enthusiastically and declared,

'Well done Mummy. That was brilliant. Can I have a snack now?'

'Yes of course you can darling' I smiled 'Just let me disinfect everything within an inch of it's life first.' 

Bloody cat.........