I'm Coming Down From My Election High, Now

What I am about to tell you is so scary, so potentially traumatizing, that I warned my mother about it in advance so she would be prepared.

We have a mouse.

Like, living in the same house that we live in.

Oh, the horror. Tuesday I was lying on the couch, watching The Lost Room, and I saw a little black shape dart from the door to the TV stand.

"Odd," I thought.

A while later, I saw it dart back. That's when I called Todd at work.

"There's a mouse. In our house and I'm scared."

"Go get Tom and tell him to catch it."

"Tom doesn't like me, he only catches things for you, remember?"

"Oh, yeah."

So I went out and got the dogs, and they sat around and stretched and yawned and played rope, and didn't catch the damn mouse, which is apparently smart enought that when it saw Penny come into the room, it thought to its mouse self, "holy crap, that dog is CRAZY and I'm staying right here under the cozy TV stand where it's safe."

It hid out all day until just before the wondrousness that is Barack Obama was declared King of the World, and just as the TV was announcing that news, the damn mouse ran across the floor again, and all of us -- me, Todd, Dan His Brother, and Kelley Dan's Wife, AND Tom the Cat -- freaked out and didn't know where to look. We all pretty much agreed on the king declaration, and the mouse stayed hidden some more.

This morning I was sitting on the couch, eating some cereal, and that mouse came out from under the TV stand, and I SWEAR, he stopped, looked at me, said, "Oh, having some breakfast? I wouldn't mind having some myself, and by the way, when you go to work, can you please leave the TV on CNN so I can keep up with any Cabinet appointments?"

I'm not kidding. If this keeps up, I'm coming to live with you.

Yes, YOU.