There's a Mouse in the House (Finis)

 So the cats remained non-committal about the whole mouse-removal part of their job description and meanwhile I kept seeing the little critter scurry over and behind the TV. "What are we going to do?" demanded Heidi, and in response I shook my head.

"It'll come to me," I said.

Heidi knelt on the floor with a flashlight. "I see it!" she reported. It was sitting on the cables and wires in the 2 inch hole in the back of the TV stand. "Oop! There it goes!" 

The mouse had retreated through another cable pass-through into one side of the stand with a closed cabinet. I grabbed some packing tape and sealed the hole, trapping it behind the door. As the mouse explored its new situation, its increasingly panicky jumps and scampers finally attracted the attention of the cats, who were riveted to the TV stand for the rest of the night.

"At least we know where it is," I said, "and it can't get out of there. We have some time to figure it out."

An hour or so later, the solution finally came to me. "I know what to do!" I told Heidi. "We can take all the stuff off and out of the cabinet, drag it outside, and open the door. Then it's up the mouse,"

Satisfied that we had a plan, I slept soundly last night and woke this morning with determination. It would be good to organize all the devices and wires and what-not, and it would be great to be rid of the mouse. I set to work unplugging cables and dusting shelves and moving the turntable, the DVD/VHS player, the DVR, the game system, and the pair of streaming cubes. At last the cabinet was empty except for the side that held the mouse. 

Heidi and I lifted and dragged the awkward triangular-shaped piece of furniture up over the step to the dining room and then through the entryway to the front door. Snow was falling and a frigid wind blew. I convinced myself that instinct would lead the mouse to find shelter far away from this house where it was threatened and trapped.

At last we were on the front stoop and Heidi untaped the door and opened it. Her eyes widened. "It's right there!" she said and started banging on the cabinet to get it to leave. Something small and gray landed at my feet. It was a dead mouse.

"Seriously? After all that?" Heidi said. "I guess we must have scared it to death.