It is 4am. I know he’s already been awake for an hour now. Normally the dim light from our single lamp would peak around the edges of the curtain that covers the glass door to the bedroom. This morning however, everything is dark. I shift and roll over, trying to fall back asleep. Suddenly a small light flashes on in the other room. A small beam of light that moves. A flashlight.
“Fuck” I whisper.
Jon must be hunting cockroaches. I sit up, fumble for my sleeping mask and slide it over my eyes. Half of me hopes to hear a loud thud because that means he has squashed the bug while the other half prays for silence so that I can quickly fall back to sleep. And I do for a little while.
But inevitably at some point I hear another thud and drowsily I slide up the mask and crack open one eye. Still, I see the flashlight make its way across the bottom of the floor and every so often it crawls up the edge of the wall. Maybe he is still searching for the cockroach or maybe he has instead turned his focus to the small lizard that lives in the backside of the fridge. Annoyed at the situation, I huff and sigh to myself and again find the cool side of the pillow.
But within the hour the thuds have become pretty consistent and dawn begins to work its way in through the edges of the curtain. I run my hands over my face, throw my legs over the bed and slowly stumble to the bedroom door. I pull aside the curtain and with some effort slide the door back. And on the floor, sitting cross legged and wearing a huge grin on his face, sits Jon.
“Wanna see a mouse?”
I shake my head, amused at his stance and somehow not surprised.
“We have a mouse now?” I say exasperated.
“Yes, but I caught him.” He smiles in an attempt to look nonchalant.
“With….what? We don’t have any mousetraps.”
“I made a trap. I used a tupperware container, a spoon, some cheese and a string!” And with that he quickly recreates his homemade trap, modeling for me how he hid behind the garbage can and waited quietly for the mouse to crawl out from under the cabinet.
“It took me a really long time to corner him. I had to wait really patiently for him to come out each time. I could only tell where he was because there was a plastic bag in the corner and he kept stepping on it. Also he can jump really high! He kept jumping at the front door, trying to get out.”
Jon crawled into place behind the garbage can and pretended to pull the string that was still attached to the tupperware container.
“So I put a piece of cheese under the container and used a spork to prop it up. And then I waited here for, like, ever. And then eventually he crawled out and ran to eat the cheese and I pulled the string and the container fell on him and trapped him!”
I laughed and shook my head, “That is strangely and incredibly impressive.”
The mouse skirted around inside the container. It was obviously petrified that it had been caught.
“So did you get any work done this morning? How long did this all take?”
“Oh no. I’ve done nothing. This is literally the only thing I accomplished today. But! I caught him!” He grinned, feeling very proud of himself.
“So, are we keeping him?”
“No, I’m going to let him go. But I want you to take a video when I let him out so we can remember him!”
So we walked out into the early morning light to the side of the road, I in my pajamas, he in his t-shirt and underwear. I crouched down and got into position with my camera as he readied the cardboard fitted over the top of the container. We slowly counted to three and then off came the cardboard and out ran the mouse and behind us drove a truck, probably wondering what in the hell two grown adults were doing sitting on the side of the road with Tupperware and a camera at 6:00am.