Did you hear that? It was a crunching noise

I recently mentioned that I was once awoken by a mouse eating cookies. Chocolate Joe Joe's from Trader Joe's, to be exact. I turned on the light and the mouse took off. It's a long story and I was at a friend's house, but I had bought this box of cookies and for some stupid reason I didn't think it was smart to leave the cookies downstairs on the table all night. She has huge dogs and I thought the dogs might be tempted even though the dogs sleep in the kids' rooms at night. But it seemed like I should put the stupid cookies away and since it wasn't my house, "away" made my overnight bag seem appropriate.

Chew on that for a second: I put the cookies in my overnight bag. The mouse was in MY BAG. When I woke up and realized that freaking mouse was eating my cookies, it was only a second more before my brain registered that the mouse was in MY BAG. Let me tell you how this went.

When I first woke up, I just thought someone was in the room.
Then I realized someone was eating.
I thought it was one of the kids, which I immediately thought was strange.
As my brain began to turn toward reality, it dawned on me PDQ that it had to be a mouse.
A mouse eating cookies.
Eating cookies I had put "away" in my bag.
THERE WAS A MOUSE IN MY BAG!

I reached over to the nightstand and turned on the light as I looked toward the bag - the bag I had put on the floor, naturally. The unzipped bag on the floor. The bag with my toothbrush in it, but I'll talk about that in a minute. The light came on, the mouse departed quickly. It was about yea big: ##............................................................## and it was grey. I was mortified. Now I had to get out of bed, which I did because what if the mouse came back and was bigger and got into bed with me? What if he went back to say there were enough cookies for the whole team? What if he brought reinforcements?

I grabbed my clothes at the end of the bed and shook them like they were full of sand. I put them on and opened the door. That unleashed the dogs, who were now awake and wanting to go outside. I went downstairs and wondered what I was going to do.

After the dogs came back inside, I went up to get the offensive bag. I dragged it by the handle all the way down the stairs, thump-thump-thumping down each step because I had by now convinced myself that the hungry mouse had deposited babies or left a friend behind or some equally heinous act. Even though I saw him leave, maybe he had come back, so I thought I could bounce him out of the bag as it thumped down the steps.

I tossed the bag into the dining room and immediately one dog went to it and stuck her whole face inside. She pulled out a sock. I told her to carry it around and have fun. She came back a few times and stuck her whole face back in the bag, but she never pulled out a mouse. So I reached in with a tissue around my hand (like you do with waxed paper at the bakery) and grabbed the box. Smart mousie had chewed a hole through the box to get to the cookies. I threw the box in the trash. I zipped up the bag and ultimately took the bag home where I put it in the garage and left it for 24 hours without saying a word to anyone.

The next day, I opened the bag and dumped it on the floor. I threw away what I could and put the rest in the washing machine. I doused the bag with disinfecting wipes and left it in the garage for another day to dry out. And by dry out, I really mean to let the cooties out.

It was only ONE mouse, after all. I figured that since mice are not known for good manners, I would find mouse poop or who knows what else. I'm simultaneously disgusted and amused. I can't find rubber gloves, so I used a paper towel to throw things away and then scrubbed my hands with lye soap and a wire brush hot water and soap.

So now what happened last night will make perfect sense.

Last night I stayed up late. I have no idea why because I was tired and staying up late isn't a talent of mine, but I have piled-up reading material in the house causing me stress and when the Good Housekeeping magazine was staring at me from the nightstand, I decided to read the entire thing so I could be done with it.

So I'm reading this magazine in the quiet night of the house when I hear a sound under the bed. Crunch. Just one crunch. I keep reading, but visions of a wee grey mouse abound.

Crunch. I hear it again and I look over the side of the bed. I keep reading.

Crunch. Again it's just one crunch, not noisy crunching. At this point, the cat next to me has obviously heard the crunching. Not to be cowed by a small mouse or the ridiculousness of it all, I get out of bed and walk on my tiptoes, which makes no sense whatsoever, over to the bathroom on the other side of the bed. I'm thinking surely there is someone eating a few morsels of leftover food from the dish in there, but no. I consider looking under the bed, but the idea of coming nose-to-nose with a mouse is more than I can handle, to be honest.

I think that I need to be rational. I'm on the second floor, but then again it is wicked freaking cold outside these days but then again, I think any mouse that's been outside this winter met his maker about three months ago, bless him, and why would he just now be in my house and WHAT could he possibly be snacking on under my bed? What with all my rational thinking, it doesn't occur to me that we have a whole bunch of  few cats and the likelihood of a mouse setting up shop in my house is pretty small.

I climb back in bed from the opposite side, which means I am climbing over a sleeping cat and a sleeping husband. As I climb into bed, I see that Annabelle, who was napping on my side of the bed is now looking down to the floor and turning her head just a little bit as if something is moving around that is worthy of her attention. I STOP TO LISTEN AGAIN.

Not sure what I want to do next, and please recall that I am now perched on the end of the bed with one knee and one foot on the bed, probably frozen with one hand in the air as I stopped progress to my side of the bed. I am there, poised, watching Annabelle watch something on the floor. I listen carefully and hear nothing. I give it another second and I hear:

"What are you doing?"

"Getting back in bed," I replied. Duh, right? He closes his eyes, unfazed by the yoga pose I'm doing at the end of the bed at 11:30 at night.

He isn't even curious! So I ask, "Do you think we could have a mouse in the bedroom?"

Without a trace of emotion, because he is asleep and we don't see the same funny in things, "Are you kidding me? There isn't a mouse in this block. Have you seen how many cats we have?"

"But I heard crunching under the bed."

"Do you know what's under the bed? Vomit. Someone found it and is having a snack." And? Sound asleep two seconds later. Completely unfazed.

I figured he was probably right. We periodically have to check under the bed because, and if you have cats, you know this, cats will hork up their expensive fancy-pants food that comes from the veterinarian and is made from unicorn horns and pixie wings so it's very expensive and they hork it wherever they want and sometimes they are under the bed when they do it.

Also? A mouse in my bedroom at night would have to be one heck of a gangster mouse.

I turned out the light and went to bed and didn't think about looking to see what or who was under the bed.