The Mouse

I had a very interesting run-in with a Vietnamese mouse last night (I say Vietnamese mouse because it has a very long tail and huge ears, it looks a bit more exotic than your typical New Jersey house mouse). After a hard day at work it felt so great to get into my bed, shut out the lights, and doze off. But right before I hit the wave of sleep, I heard this chewing scratching noise. I turned over in my bed, figuring it was my fan making weird noises, and tried to get back to sleep. Two minutes later, I hear a loud "plop!" and then the scratching noise ensued. Given my experiences with mice living in the walls of my bedroom in my first house in Berkeley Heights, this sound was all too familiar to ignore. With the intention of scaring the mouse away I noisily jumped out of bed and flicked on the lights. Sure enough, my bedroom was empty, my door to the living room was closed, and the only sign of life was two little mouse poops sitting directly on top of my bed side table. Obviously this fact was quite unsettling as I realized how close this creature had been to my head. I made a quick investigation of my room, found a couple more "mouse presents", then did all my best to get back into bed to sleep. By this point, I was getting nervous that it was not merely a mouse but a very large and scary Vietnamese rat, so I left my light on. I always close my bedroom door at night, so as I was laying, staring at the door, sure that some huge monster rat was going to walk through on his hind legs, I see this tiny little spot running from one side of my door to the other. I quickly grabbed my glasses to get a better view, and in doing so, scared it away. Relieved that it was such a tiny mouse (rather than a large rat) I relaxed a bit and tried to get back to sleep. Before this could happen, I heard the now familiar "plop!" and the chewing noise again. I slowly turned over, and reached for my glasses to see if I could make out the critter. With glasses on, I was able to see this tiny mouse climbing vertically up my wall, about 5 feet high until it "plop!", hit the ground and started frantically trying to nose its way under my door. It seemed quite focused on the area by the hinge, as it stuck it's head in, twisted it's body 360 degrees, flung its tail in circles, and starting chomping away in an effort to get through. I was quite impressed by the efforts of this tiny thing, and felt myself taking pity on it. Therefore, I got out of bed (but not before it ran into a corner), opened my door a crack, and laid back down to watch its escape. Minutes later, it was back out trying to climb up my wall, unaware that I had allowed it a means of exit. After falling back down yet again with a very unnerving smack, it ran along the door until it found the crack, happily slipping out. After its tail dissapeared, I slammed my door behind it; I was pleased to have the brave little mouse hanging out in my living room rather than with me by my bed, as I was quite content sleeping alone. The rest of the night, I was unbothered by any noises, and went to sleep quite satisfied with freeing the mouse from my bedroom.