If you're my neighbor, I apologize for the serial-killer-like screams this morning

I've been banished from my own home.

"Ooh, Dave finally showed her the door."

No.

"Ooh, she fled with a hot English bloke named Jude Law."

I wish.

No, no. I just had a minor meltdown. Oo-K. I will be honest. I had a major breakdown. Melt is even too polite for what I had.

Dave and I were having one of those sugar-sweet mornings, where he made cinnamon rolls, we were watching some YouTube comedy with the laptop between us on the couch, saying all those mushy things people get married to say without a hint of irony.

And then Dave had to leave to go cover a midget football game. Only I don't think they actually call the league midget football in Wisconsin. Little league football, midget football, whatever.

He left.

I went upstairs skipping because that was the mood God put me in this morning just to make the following situation that much crappier. Skipping up the stairs, humming, saying "Come on, Mr. Big! Let's get ready." For what? Nothing. Just Saturday! Weee, life is fun!

Halt.

Top stair, Erin has her right leg in mid-air, towel and clothes in hand, and freezes. The right leg comes down with a thud and the object of my OH CRAP moment turns to face me.

A MOUSE is in MY HOUSE. MINE. INSIDE. UPSTAIRS.

I screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOO" and ran downstairs, throwing the pile o' stuff I was carrying, hopping on the coffee table and shrieking. The very to-the-letter definition of shrieking.

I dial Dave.

Voicemail message pops on.

I hang up. Redial.

Voicemail.

I hang up, threaten his life, redial, voicemail.

I hang up, start that uncontrollable breathing problem thing and push "send." He answers. Heaven help him, he answers.

"Hello?"

"Dave. Dave. Dave. (Sobbing hysterically.)"

"What? (Kind of laughing, though the polite kind that won't leave him looking stupid if I'm calling to tell him the dog died or something.)"

Gasping for air between sobs, I scream "Mouse! There's a mouse! Dave, Dave, Dave."

"A mouse?"

"YES." I am angry, because that's what irrational fear does to a person like me.

"Where?"

"UPSTAIRS." Sob.

"Do you want me to come home?"

At this, I stop crying, calmly sit on the couch and say "No, 's all right, dah-ling. I will handle this like an adult."

Or, I said "YEEEESSSSS Help me, help me," I said, panicking because the little rodent found its way down the stairs and was sitting calmly about 10 feet away from my coffee-table perch.

I hung up and expected him to be here already, because hi, I'm having the worst time of my life here and God wouldn't put Dave too far away, right?

Five minutes - or months, if you were standing there watching me jump up and down on the coffee table to thwart any sudden movements in my direction by the mouse - later, he pulls in the driveway to me screaming "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO Not here, not here, not now, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this."

He comes in, walks right past the little sucker and makes sure I'm breathing.

It's the first time I consider what I must look like. Unshowered, in my pajamas, red faced, jumping up on the coffee table, shaking my hair through my fingers because I can feel it in my hair and then hopping on one foot and holding the legs of my pajama pants shut because I can feel it running up my leg. Sweating. Shaking. Hysterical. In other words, hot. Really, really hot.

"Shhh, shh, Erin, it's all right. It's all right. Shhh."

And I proceeded to remind him how long the rest of our lives together would be if he continued to try to calm me down and NOT kill the object of my affliction.

To sum up his heroic act, he threw an empty laundry basket over the thing, chased it around the dining room for a while, then captured it in a Tupperware container and threw it in the garbage in the garage. Ta da.

But that didn't calm me down. He had to carry me upstairs to take a shower. I begged him, literally begged him, to take me with him when he left. I made him buy four mouse traps, four noise-deterrent things (that I am well aware don't work, but make me feel better) and enough poison for the attic to stink up the whole house if it works.

I know, I know. It's only one mouse in one year we've lived here. I will strangle the next person who tells me all homes have mice. Hear that??

Still. I am creeped out. Dave's never home at night when I am -- he's working. So, yeah, I am a freaking out over this. Big time.

I've not been inside all day. Right now, I'm on the deck, enjoying our wireless connection. Before, I was shopping, enjoying nothing but maybe the fact that I wasn't at home.

I don't think I can do this. It's God's way of saying I need to move. Or have Dave here all the time. Or maybe invest in a couple cats, seeing as my DOG was sitting on the couch watching ME instead of KILLING the damn thing. Ugh.

Want to know a backstory? I used to stay at Dave and his roommate Rob's house in college, til one day I walked in the living room and saw two mice*. I more than freaked out. I clawed my way up Dave like a scared cat in a tree. He carried me to the car and I never -- never, not once, not even to move him out -- went back in that house.

But I pay for this house. What a conundrum.

And what the gel, it's not even October yet. I thought I was home free til November, at least.

*Two mice is slightly debatable. Dave says I saw the same mouse in two places. I think that's crazy talk and the reason people get put on medicine for life.