Another Mouse Tale

I recently remembered another "funny" mouse tale - this time, though, the story has nothing to do with Mark and it makes me shudder rather than laugh when I think about it. But it's still worth recounting...

About 15 years ago, my boyfriend and I decided to go to Tahoe for the weekend to ski. We set out on a Friday night in a lowered '88 5.0 convertible Mustang - the perfect car for a trip to the snow, right??? Um, wrong... We planned on driving up I-80 and stopping somewhere for the night and then turning towards Tahoe in the morning since I-80 is usually much clearer than I-50 (details you don't necessarily need, but I've included them nonetheless)... Even though we didn't have the best car for the snow, we at least packed snow chains (and of course it snowed). When we were required to use the snow chains, however, my boyfriended decided that it would be safer to take the next exit off the interstate (which happened to be the exit towards Emigrant Gap) rather than to just pull to the side of the interstate... and of course we got stuck in the snow because the snow plows don't plow the exit ramps (just the interstate) and the snow was too high for the lowered Mustang. Good times.

I'll skip the 2 hours of frustration at being "stranded" on the side of the road because this blog isn't about that - it's about mice... but eventually we were picked up and taken to the Bates Motel. Ok, maybe not literally but it was certainly very spooky and seemingly out-of-the-way at that time of night. There were approximately 12 rooms, none of which appeared to be occupied - the fact that there were no cars in the parking lot added to my suspicions. And, the rooms didn't have a bathroom - there was a communal bathroom down a long dark hallway that I refused to use for fear of being hacked by Norman Bates himself while showering (or going potty for that matter)... Our room consisted of one bed, one nightstand, and one window with hardwood floors - it was very basic and practically bare. This information is only relevant because it added to the "spooky" factor for me and it certainly wasn't very comforting.

Moments after turning out the light and settling in to bed (fully clothed, of course, because I just knew that I was going to have to run for my life at some point throughout the night and I wanted to be prepared!), I hear scratching sounds on the wall!!! Of course every conceivable (and some inconceivable) reason why someone might be scratching on the wall instantly ran through my head and none of them calmed my nerves!!! Thankfully it didn't take me long to figure out that there were mice inside the walls, but I was still very freaked out! I made my boyfriend pull the bed away from the wall because I felt safer and I tried really hard to fall asleep so that morning would come quickly! Whether it was real or imagined, I heard mice running around in the walls and in our room all night! And, throughout the night, I "felt" mice running around on the comforter and would kick my legs out to send them flying just in case I wasn't imagining it! Needless to say, at the crack of dawn I was up and out of the Mouse Motel without a second look back! Eek!