Say hello to my little friend.

Matt is calling him Frank. I am calling him $!&*Nuts- because I am ever the lady... Who? You ask... Well....

Let's back up a bit... Back in February, maybe, I remember hearing scritching in the walls... Matt and I discussed and we came to a conclusion- wombat. Just kidding. Clearly, we had a mouse friend. So, his landlady, Janice (of the great shoes and scary hobgoblin) got him a humane trap. Matt put in some toast and the mouse was never caught. (mice don't eat dry toast... butter and jam, please!) Now, when I was here a couple weeks ago, I dropped a corner of my buttered and jammed toast and did not pick it up. Lazy? No. "Suck it all in" undergarment under my nice black, funeral dress not allowing me to bend? YES! Now the next morning, I thought- I should pick up that toast and lo and behold... it was gone! Well, not gone but moved. And the butter and jam side? Scraped clean!! Now I am no CSI but I do watch the show and I quickly came to the conclusion.... Mouse. Some of you may recall the Hershey Kiss eating bastard who dragged one to the crack in the wall so that he could be safe and unwrap and eat the Kiss from INSIDE OF THE WALL- all the while flipping us off! Jenn Ritchie and Annie and I lived through quite an infestation way back when... But it taught me a few things! (among them the necessity for a shoe to come along with a sticky trap!)

The first thing it taught me... was that mice don't eat just anything and 2) that they are crafty little buggers and so, I made Matt remove the dry toast, I buttered and jammed a new piece and returned to America with a "see ya, wouldn't want to be ya!" for Frankie $!&*Nuts! But it was he who had the last laugh...

Not last night, but the night before... I was sitting in the front room (which includes the kitchenette) talking to Jo. Feet up, drinking a lovely red. Matt was in the bedroom watching It's All Gone, Pete Tong (a really interesting flick, BTW) and who came waltzing out, all cute and furry and ballsy??? You guessed it, Frankie $!&*Nuts!!! Alive and well and demanding some Wisconsin Cheddar!! Well, I chased him around for a bit and he got away. Matt was called in to do the dishes immediately whilst I gave the mouse a stern talking to!! Humane trap, my ass!! It's snap trap time,

$!&*Nuts!!! Keeping in mind, as some of you may recall from several posts ago, that the whole time Matt was in America last weekend the cat was hanging out up here! What did they do? Play Sorry??? Canasta?? Poor Tish- only good for a sneeze.

So, last night when we went to get the snap traps, my beloved ASDA didn't carry them!!! Ant traps? yes. Weed killer? Uh, huh! Snap Traps... no. And so, Frankie $!&*Nuts has gotten to live another day. But today, the whole point of my wander is to purchase snap traps and kill the beast!!! Matt has bet me that I will cry when I see him dead and then took one look at the crazed glare in my eye (not to mention the frying pan in my hand with which I was poised to kill it with) and sagely returned to his film. I proceeded to stuff all cracks with aluminum foil (say it however you like, Brits/Americans) in the hopes of well, foiling his adventures until his impending death.

So, say goodbye to Frankie $!&*Nuts!!! He has become my mission and I unfortunately for him, have nothing else to do!! Oh, but don't tell Janice! Hobgoblin aside, she is a very peaceful person and would be quite upset by my blood lust!