I am completely embarrassed and humiliated to admit that the previously shared mouse story has become a full-blown Situation. Embarrassed because it’s easy to assume the presence of mice is caused by a dirty, cluttered and disgusting home, or that the presence of mice causes a house to be dirty. In reality, our house is neither that dirty nor cluttered, it’s just really, really old with tons of weird nooks, crannies and holes. The basement is the stuff of horror films, and there are plenty of ways mice could make their home down there and then vacation in our living spaces.

A week or so after the dog caught the mouse running out of the closet, we heard the telltale rustling and squeak coming from our pantry/laundry room. The Modern Love Machine more or less dismantled the space — finding plenty of food the mice decided to snack on along the way — and saw a mouse run across the floor and escape to behind the refrigerator. The dog noticed too and patiently awaited the mouse’s return trip, as in she didn’t move a muscle for about 30 minutes while she stared at the corner of the refrigerator. The mouse did dare to run back across the floor but made it only as far as the dog’s mouth, or so we assume, because the dog appeared to be munching something as she ran out of the kitchen, but by the time we got to her there was nothing in her mouth.

Yeah, I know my dog shouldn’t be eating mice, but she’s way faster than us and probably smarter too, or at least — ahem — more patient, so we invested in a bunch of traps from Home Depot and have been racking up the points in the game of Us vs. Them in the past week or so. I’d say we’re winning, but we have no idea what size team the mice are fielding because we can’t actually determine where their bench is.

I realize we should probably call an exterminator, but I’ve yet to convince myself that an exterminator is going to do anything besides set traps, which we’ve already accomplished, and tell us to seal all the possible points of entry, which is impossible — all while charging us and costing me a day at the office. But the next time a mouse digs into a bag of my pita chips, the jig is up.