the great mousecapade 2011. part 1.

this story begins about 4 weeks ago when robyn told me she thought we had a mouse in our house. (i just can't resist the rhyming.  its too cliche not to.)  honestly i laughed and didn't believe it because i hadn't really seen any of the signs of mice.  shame on me.  she set some traps but we never saw anything so we kind of just dropped it. 
fast forward to tuesday night.  i was sitting in bed reading and thought i saw something scurry across the floor into my closet.  i was kind of confused because trooper is laying at the foot of my bed and doesn't move a muscle.  the thing about the troop is that any kind of living creature in what he thinks is his territory sends him THROUGH the roof.  he sees a dog at the end of the block, a cat on the golf course, a neighbor in THEIR yard across the street, a moth in the house and IT'S OVER.  i just couldn't believe that if a mouse ran across the floor he wouldn't notice it.  way to go troop.  this could have been your moment of shining glory.  instead you just snooze it away.  cautiously, after putting on my tennis shoes (safety first always, i'm not interested in any mice nibbling my toes) i look around in my closet.  about this time robyn walked in.  THANK GOODNESS.  i cannot do this alone.  the only weird thing we notice are corn kernels scattered in little trails all around my closet.  what the heck.  after looking a little closer, we can see that it all starts from my corn bag.  (for those of you who don't know the greatness of a cornbag, it is literally a fabric bag filled with dried corn kernels that you warm up in the microwave and use as a heating pad.  heavenly. ) and that's where i see it.  there are holes in my corn bag.  we also notice little droppings here and there.  don't worry, we verified this on google.  yes, we are those people.  what would we even do without the world wide web?  thank you, al gore.  i kid, i kid.  kind of...
   all this to say  MOUSE CONFIRMED.  and in my closet of all places.  this would be the case since i laughed at the idea of mice in our house just a month ago.  and i apparently have been providing a corn feast to these crawly creatures for who knows how long.  perfect.  lesson learned.  boo.   
so now we are left with figuring out what to do about this.  i'm sure you are all on the edge of your seats waiting eagerly to find out how this story ends.  well stick around for part 2 once we figure this out ourselves.  suggestions are welcome.