MOUSE!!!!!!!!

Tweet

it is no secret that I am terrified of mice, in fact, my soon-to-be-released cozy mystery, titled

Of Mice. . .and Murder

stars a woman terrified of mice and I can bring UTTER HONESTY to that character.

I mention that today because there's a live mouse caught in a glue trap in my office.

I am, of course, too terrified to get rid of it.

This is my own personal Close Encounters of the Furred Kind!

Oddly enough, I'm also too terrified to ask someone else to get rid of it because I know the people I'd have to ask and they seem CONGENITALLY UNABLE to dispatch a mouse without waving it at me to scare me.

I think that's something Adolph Hitler would have done.

So, I set something in front of it and now I'm all Scarlett O'Hara, "I'll think about it tomorrow."

I blocked my vision with a little free standing file holder.

Now I can't see my friend la petit souris. (that's French for little mouse, I looked it up as part of my obsession)

I'm playing a mind game.

I know der maus (german) is there but if I can't see it I can function.

If the horrible, disease bearing vermin was visible,

my eyes would be darting over to it constantly.

Oops, mice DART. I regret using that word.

But, while my mind jumps to the existance of it's wiggling little self constantly, I can go on...not perfectly, this blog and the fact that I'm writing about poco ratón (spanish-ick-sounds like RAT)proves that I can go on.

KNOWING is different than SEEING and I can fuction.

Sort of.

So this boils down to denial.

Denial that the long and winding rodent is really there.

(yes, I've given him/her a nickname)

I can completely see how someone could lie to themselves.

You could say: No, I'm not an alcoholic.

Or: Sure I smoke but I can quit anytime I want.

Or (here's a favorite of mine): I'm not FAT, my pelvic bones just spread during pregnancy

and have never come back to where they once were.

Anyway, I'd upload a picture of poco topo (Italian-HEY! That's what the online translation says is little mouse so shut up!)

to liven this blog up but if I did then

TADA

There'd be a picture of a mouse on my blog

and I'd have to set something in front of my computer monitor so I couldn't see it.

That'd be inconvenient.

So instead I stuck some pictures of my cozy mysteries up here,

and THEY have a mouse on them but

PRAISE THE LORD

it's a small cartoonish mouse. Which is still dreadful.

But even with the weinig muis (Dutch-I tried Russian, fuggedabouddit-they don't even use real letters!) I was able to touch the cover and hold the book and read it.

I wasn't sure how that'd work out when I was whining to my editor about the cover.

Her feeling was that I couldn't call a book series

The Maxie Mouse Mystery Series,

and set it in

Melnik, Nebraska,

The Home of the World's Largest Field Mouse

and not put Maxie on the cover.

So we did.

Eek!