The Vermin Wars

Two weeks ago, I was sitting in the office working on an article when I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye. A Big. Fat. Freakin'. Beady-eyed. mouse was four inches from my foot, staring at my toe like it wanted to take a bite out of it. Maybe because I had on orange socks with cheese-like holes all over them.
Anway, I screamed so loud I scorched my throat and nearly gave Riley a heart attack. The terrified mouse ran away, probably to tell all its friends the red brick home was inhabited by some crazy lady wearing cheese socks.
Since then, I've been engaging in some diligent psychoanalysis, trying to figure out why it is that women are so bugged by the fact there may be a mouse or two running around in their house (It's not just me, is it?). Any ideas? Anyone? The best theory I came up with is related to some painful, mice-related suppressed memories, which I will be happy to share if anyone is interested.
The news of the mouse sighting didn't seem to bother hubby. When I told him, he said, "Come on. This is OKLAHOMA. Every house here has mice AND roaches in it." Gee, that information would have been more useful BEFORE we moved here.
Sam did consent to set a few mouse traps for my sake, all of which had unfortunate victims in them before the night was over. That was enough to turn our house into a war zone. And, as we know, all's fair in love and war.
My first trick was to lure the buggers away by constructing an intricate cheese and peanut butter trail leading to my neighbor's door, on which I had posted a sign that read: "Attention, mice. Please help yourself to our plentiful supply of easily-accessible food." (Okay, so I only played out this scenario in my head. You caught me--I've been watching far too many reruns of Scrubs).
To win this war, I've done things I never imagined I would do. I bought a caulking gun and some steel wool. I crawled around in gross, confining crawl spaces looking for holes that needed to be plugged up. I went to Home Depot approximately a thousand times, where I asked questions that clearly exposed my stupidity. (Example: I don't really want to buy any new tools. Do you think I could fix a hole under a sink with my glue gun?)
I had an extremely uncomfortable conversation with an oldie who shall remain unnamed which went a little something like this:
Me: What do you think is the best type of mouse poison?
Oldie: Oh, there's this brand that I started using in December of 1990. That's when it first came out. It works great. I don't remember the name, but it comes in a green package. You can buy twelve of them in one bunch. It used to come in a red package, and you could only buy six at one time. I think it was a few years ago when they changed it. I remember because I was at the store and it took me 30 minutes to find what I was looking for. This conversation lasted for another 15 minutes.
My mouse battle has taught me a couple of very important lessons. 1-I have zero home-fix-it-up skills. Actually, scratch that. I have negative skills. 2. Necessity is the mother of invention, and even sucky inventions can serve their purpose.
For example, I noticed our outside dryer vent was just loose enough that flexible little mice could easily squeeze their way in. After painstakingly constructing several different elaborate prototypes, I came up with this solution:

Sheer genuis. A spool of chicken wire securely fastened with some handy-dandy bricks.

Even though I have negative skills, it appears that I have won the war. Our house has been mouse-free this entire week. And the best part of this whole thing is that because 99.9 percent of Sam's time is occupied in learning about crista terminalis and septomarginal trebecula and other interesting medical tidbits, I can completely claim this victory for myself.

At least until Christmas break, when Sam actually has time to scrape off the caulking that I leaked all over our brick walls, sand down my bumpy drywall patch, and fix the dryer vent for real.

But for now, victory is mine, and mine alone.