This popular children’s book tells the story of a mouse, who, when given a cookie, finds more and more things he needs: milk to go with the cookie, a mirror to see if he has a milk mustache, and on and on until, thirsty, he asks for a glass of milk – and a cookie to go with it.
I had my own “Give a Mouse a Cookie” experience as I battled the ant infestation. It began when I pulled the heavy furniture away from the bedroom wall to deal with the invasion. While I had the furniture out, maybe it was a good time to clean and polish the uncovered wood floors. Who knew when I’d want to pull the furniture out again? And if I clean that part of the floor, maybe I should clean the whole floor. And if I clean the floor, maybe I should wash the rugs. The rugs are machine washable and hang to dry. Let the games begin! How hard could it be?
I finished my bedroom floor and rugs and moved the living room furniture so I could deal with the other side of the wall. And again, since things were pulled away, I decided I might as well clean the living room floor and rugs.
But before I did that, I needed to work on the cat trees: the sisal was useless on several posts. I wanted to reorient the legs so the cats would have proper scratching places. This turned out to be harder than I anticipated. Who knew sisal scratched so badly? I managed to do one tree; the other one would have to wait.
So it was that by the evening of the third day I placed the final rug on the floor, heaved a sigh, sat back – and watched an ant crawl out from the wall.
Of course I immediately dispatched it, but it was getting late and I was very tired. So I decided to draw on another great classic:
