Part 4 Life Lessons from a Double Wide: Exuse me...what was that?!?!

It was a year after we had been married. A year of living in trailer bliss. A year before they started showing up.

It wasn't very noticeable at first. We would see a few droppings here, a few droppings there. Nothing major. Then all of the sudden we had a full blown, mouse infestation.

That's right people. I said MOUSE INFESTATION.

We would lay awake at night and you could hear the little beaded eyed monsters scurrying across the floor. I would lay awake at night because obviously I couldn't sleep out of fear that they would crawl up into the bed with me. Jamie, on the other hand had no problems sleeping. "It's just a little mouse" he would say. Just a little mouse my tale.

Now, I was raised in the country. A little known place called Cunningham. I lived in a log cabin, my high school was on a pond and had an Ag class that would ride out on a trailer pulled by a tractor to check on the schools cows. So I was accustomed to the small nuisances that would occasionally creep into our home. We would set a trap and that would be that. We wouldn't have to worry about it until the next one arrived.

So needless to say, I was quit shocked when we had to set 12 traps. We literally set 12 traps. We turned off all of the lights. Within minutes we heard....pat, swap, ca pow. 12 times to be exact. Each trap had gone off with in a five minute time span. One trap even caught two mice. I was MORTIFIED.

The mice got into our closet. This was a sad day on the Autry frontier. Numerous amounts of my clothes ruined again. Not only did I have to worry about our iron water ruining my clothes, now I had to worry about the mouse pee. Seriously. I didn't sign up for this. Just wait, it gets better.

Our big mice must have discovered a little place to make mousy love because the day came when we had baby mice. They would run out in front of us while we were watching TV at night. I have to admit that initially I thought the baby mice were sort of, in their own way, cute. But that at no way changed my opinion that we needed to get rid of them.

Did I mention that my husband is an animal FA REAK. He loves animals. See part 3 about all the dogs....all HIS idea. When Jamie saw these baby mice his initial reaction..."Let's catch them in a shoe box and put them outside." So that's what he did. Not thinking that they would make their way back in to the warm house. I was of no help because I was permanently lodged on top of the sofa. Cautiously avoiding my feet from touching the ground and screaming every time one ran out.

One day I was getting ready to go to work and I heard something in our bath tub. I looked over in it and saw this little baby mouse trying to get out. It was so tiny and cute. I was not going to touch it or try to maneuver it in any way, but I had to be at work. I didn't want that baby mouse to be in there all day without any food, so I had a brilliant idea to put a few pieces of dog food in the tub with the baby mouse. That's correct. I fed the mouse. What was Jamie doing to me? How had I turned into a person who would feed a mouse. A MOUSE.

We eventually had to put our foot down (Jamie had to put his foot down, I was still afraid to walk on the floor out of fear that one would scurry across my feet). Jamie made the trip to the CO OP to get some poison. He did ask the men at the store if they carried any sort of product that would get rid of the mice without actually killing them. Oh if I could have seen the looks on those big farmer guy's faces. They of course did not.

I think I failed to mention that it was summer during the over taking. A very HOT summer. So someone looking down on us must have thought that the mice infestation wasn't enough. Our air conditioning went out. In July. In Tennessee. In the middle of being over thrown by mice.

Now I don't know if you've ever experienced a truly foul smell before. But I will be the first to tell you that if this situation ever happens to you. Please smile, nod your head and take off running in the other direction. Mouse pee and poop in a trailer with no air conditioning in the middle of summer is something that can only be described as horrendous.

I remember thinking, "What have I done?". I was working as a camp counselor, so I was outside all day in the hot sun and I would come home in the evening to a hot house smelling of mice. It took THREE WEEKS to get our air fixed.

During that time Jamie and I tried to make the best of the situation. His parents had a little camper they put up on the land and it had air conditioning (and no mice). So we moved into that little thing for several nights. We hooked up the Nintendo and played Super Mario Brothers. What any other adult married couple would do.

Looking back now, I laugh at all the things we experienced in that trailer.

We did eventually get our water fixed two and a half years after we lived there. The poison worked on the mice. We tragically lost our dog Lady, which put us down to just two dogs. We got the tree removed from the back bedroom, but we never finished it before we moved! We built a house this past year. I can't say that I miss the trailer or that I'm sad that we moved. But I will say that it was an experience that I will never forget.

I really do believe that the whole trailer experience made me a much better person. I know it may sound silly, but I think God knew exactly what he was doing to break me of my shallow and high maintenance self. Jamie, bless his heart, was such a trooper and did his absolute best to always accommodate and make me happy. And who knew that he was right. The trailer was a good investment, we ended up making double of what we paid for it. I should learn to trust his judgment more often, even if its buying a double wide with a tree lodged in the back room!