I am a sentimental fool

Merwin miraculously appeared in two places last night at almost the same time. This is how I think he did it, but first let me describe Merwin's first appearance. Our friend John glimpsed him in the hallway. "You've got a mouse!" he announced, and offered to lend us a trap.

"Are you going to tell him?" Martin asked. Somewhat sheepishly, I explained how we had gotten to know Merwin over the past couple weeks and couldn't bear to kill him. John chuckled in disbelief and Merwin's neck was safe for another night.

Merwin must have heard our conversation and felt a little nervous at the mention of a trap because at that point, he scaled our heating pipe to the second floor, probably with the little ropes set he ordered from Amazon (it arrived yesterday morning, in a wee little package, with Merwin's name typed on the front. Next time I need to tell him about the Free Shipping option.)

Later that night, as I stood upstairs, poised to scratch Bea's back as she lay in her crib, Merwin streaked across the floor, almost over my feet.

"I'm getting used to that scream ," Martin said, coming into the room, kneeling down and singing to Merwin in the voice he reserves just for mice. "Come on, little buddy!"

The girls were delighted by my scream and my subsequent perch on the black four-legged stool, and they ran from their bedrooms and began a Merwin search.
But he was nowhere to be seen.

Not until. . .later still that night, when I was grading essays on the couch. Now, Merwin's got this routine down, so I should have been expecting him, and I should not have shrieked like a stuck pig when he scurried across the floor, almost over my feet again, and scooted under the couch. I set my feet on our coffee table refused to get up all night. It was a good excuse to beg Martin to serve me my Sleepytime Tea.

Either Merwin is getting really fast and efficient or there are more than one Merwin. I have to admit, I thought the Merwin I saw two nights ago lacked a certain perkiness about the ears.

After two attempts at setting up my own traps with bowls, spoons, a trail of Fruity Cheerios (which Merwin snubbed)--and then, an ingenious little track that led to a delicious peanut butter cracker plopped on the bottom of a tall trashcan, I have decided that my own inventions, though FANTASTIC, are not smart enough for Merwin, who is after all a poet and a mouse of letters.

So I ordered a live trap from a selection at Amazon, much to the relief of Elspeth, who begged me last night and again this morning, "PLEASE don't kill that mouse, Mommy!" Little does she know what a sentimental fool her mother has shown herself to be.