Last night I finally got up the nerve to tackle my children’s closet. Now, this closet, unlike all of the other reasonably navigable storage spaces in my home, is basically a dumping ground for children’s toys and outgrown clothes that I do not feel like dealing with in the present moment. When I toss things in there, it is usually in a fairly organized manner. The trouble begins when my children decide they want something out, know I’m going to say no, and decide to break into the locked closet using only a Q-tip and their mad MacGyver skills. (I promise you, there is no hyperbole in the aforementioned statement.)

Every time they break in, it is inevitable that the object they want will be located on the top shelf. This means that in order to climb the shelves, it will be necessary for them to knock everything in their way onto the ground. Even after the pile has grown to where I cannot open the closet door, they will continue to climb in, hovering precariously over a heap of stuffed animals and legos as they balance a child-sized horse on top of the train table and do circus clown tricks trying to maneuver a forbidden Risk game off of the top shelf. (Once again- not a speck of hyperbole. I birthed crazy people.)

I enlisted the help of the entire family to get the room sorted. Chris reassembled the train table, I threw toys in the trash and donation box, and Jonas sorted the things I was allowing him to keep. Maggie just flitted from project to project, occasionally making herself useful throwing something away. The closet emptied in layers. The top held dress up clothes and small boxes. The next layer were the bags and bags of outgrown clothes. Finally, toward the bottom I found stuffed animals and all of the little pieces of games, puzzles, old action figure paraphernalia that collect in corners and multiple like rabbits. I also found mouse poop. A lot of mouse poop.

Several months ago I had found just a few tiny droppings in the closet. They were dried and old, and there was absolutely no sign of a rodent anywhere. There is also no other place in our house where I have ever seen even the tiniest sign of a mouse. Ants and spiders by the boatload, yes, but never a rodent. I put the thought out of my mind. Apparently, I shouldn’t have.

As I removed the toys from the floor I began to wonder just how likely it was that there was a live mouse in the closet with me. I began to expect to see something. When I found a pile of stuffed animals in the corner covered in stuffed animal batting and fluff, I realized I had found a nest. I gingerly picked up one animal after another, shaking them each ever so slightly, and then tossed them into the trash. After about three of these, I found it. It was a soft, cuddly stuffed lamb with a huge hole in it. As I moved the lamb, a tiny brown thing streaked to the other side of the closet and then back again. I jumped about three feet in the air, doing a spastic dance trying all at once to keep tabs on the mouse and keep my feet off of the floor. As I was engaged in my panic maneuvers I began to yell out loud to myself, “WHAT AM I DOING? I AM NOT AFRAID OF MICE!”

Chris, who had watched this bizarre choreography commented, “Are you sure? You’re jumping around a lot.”

He was getting a kick out of this. I ran to the kitchen to get a container to capture the mouse. When I returned, I headed into the closet wanting to shut the door and trap the mouse inside, but the light was burned out so I had Chris replace the bulb. Ok, I’m pretty sure I shouted, “IT’S DARK! I NEED LIGHT! I’M NOT SHUTTING MYSELF IN THERE IN THE DARK! Once there was light, I trapped myself in the closet with the mouse, and then ran out again yelling, “I’M NOT DOING THIS WITHOUT SHOES! I NEED SHOES!” Chris just shook his head.

I put on my shoes, grabbed my tupperware mouse catcher and shut myself in the closet. The mouse did laps around the bookshelf, hurdles over the handful of stray toys and shot from one side of the closet to the other, at one point brushing right up against my arm because I was that close. As soon as I figured out his pattern, I crouched, ready to spring and nab him. I knew he had only to finish this lap around the bookshelf and then he would run almost directly into my trap. I hovered, I sprang, and the mouse ran pell mell under the closet door, through the kid’s room and into my scrapbooking room where he may or may not have exited out the garage.

Because I wasn’t sure where the mouse ended up, the entire scraproom got cleaned. If the mouse is still in here- he is under the washer and dryer, and survived the unceremonious poking around of the broomstick. At any rate, I brought in the cat and instructed her that it was now time to earn her keep. She’s dozing on the computer desk, oblivious to all, as I type. I, on the other hand, am hyper aware of the floor and every spot or toy in my peripheral vision is highly suspect. The closet has been sanitized, my hands have been washed multiple times. Hantavirus fantasies abound, and the children were given a big lecture about sneaking food into their room complete with the great visual of the destroyed lamb being used as a threat against their much loved stuffed animals. The closet is being kept open, and I go in every few hours to shake the shelf where the mouse was hiding, just in case.