My Promo-Mentors writing challenge: Ever had a mouse chew your hair at night?

It was all my cat Teddy's fault.

Prologue
I'm not afraid of things like mice, snakes, lizards etc. I do very much object to being startled by any such creatures unexpectedly jumping out of hiding, however.

source: Pixabay

My Mouse Tale
This particular incident happened last year when warm weather arrived here on our new (to us) homestead, and we began constantly hearing both mice and bats in the walls at night. We bought ultrasonic pest repellers which eventually cleared out the bats for good--but then we began finding dead mice in our bedroom. We wondered if the pest repellers were driving them out of the walls into the house. There was no question that Teddy was killing them, but "Where are they getting in?!" I fretted after finding one in the middle of our closet floor.

Teddy was going through his springtime twitterpated cat phase in which he slumbered all day long and partied all night long. He is a klutzy, most ungraceful fellow, one of those big cats that you can hear lumbering about; and his favorite thing to do in the wee hours was bring a cat toy in or near our bedroom and proceed to crash about with it. So when he woke me up one night, banging around the radiator under the window, I was as cross as anyone would be with a cat that had an entire house and attached garage to play in, yet chose to make unholy racket mere feet away at 1 AM.

"Get out of here! OUT!" I hissed as I lunged out of bed and pursued him across the room, flailing my arms. He galloped off and I grumbled my way back to bed.

About an hour later I jerked awake to tiny nibbling sounds. Within a fraction of a second my mind processed: nibbling sounds + movement on my hair = OMG MOUSE! that's what Teddy was playing with!! and I bolted upright, gasping "What on earth?!"

"Huuuh? Wha?" mumbled the Husband.

"There was a mouse chewing my hair!" I exclaimed in disbelief. "A MOUSE!"

"It probably was," the Husband murmured.

"Doesn't that bother you? Don't you want to find it!?" Outraged by his unconcerned response, I hopped out of bed, turned on the lamp and began peeping under the bed and nightstand.

"What are you going to do if you find it?" sleepily queried the Husband as I pulled the nightstand out from the wall, quivering with tension and trepidation that the mouse might leap out toward me.

"Probably scream and jump," I admitted.

"Exactly. Just come back to bed," he advised.

Unable to find the mouse, I did. Did I fall back asleep? Not for a long, long while! I laid there, straining to hear any mouse-like noises and overanalyzing every noise I did hear. I was certain the hair nibbling creature would return for more. This must have tired me enough to fall back asleep, because the next thing I knew, WHOMP!

Now it was the Husband sitting up. "It was chewing my hair now," he said. His attempt to flatten the mouse had failed, and another search proved futile. It was gone. Now it was 4 AM and we both decided to just get up.

After coffee, I returned to our bedroom to make the bed. Teddy followed me, and lazily sat in the middle of the floor, watching me with sleepy eyes. "Hurry up and fix that so I can go to bed," he seemed to say.

"Fine cat you are. Where were you last night when the mouse was in my hair?" I reproached him, and picked up the Husband's pillow. Out popped the mouse! It ran in erratic circles on the bed as I recoiled in surprise.

Now that I could see the mouse, though, I quickly calmed down. "Teddy!" I exclaimed. "Look! A mouse! Here! Get it!" and I picked him up and plopped him onto the bed. That rotten cat gave me a baleful look that quite obviously said "Are you kidding? I'm too tired for this s***," deliberately turned his back on the tasty morsel, thumped onto the floor, and marched out.

The mouse was now perched between two rails on our headboard, whiskers twitching, big eyes wide. I moved and it began to run across the bed; so I grabbed a pillow and trapped it underneath. Now what? A couple minutes later the Husband walked in to find me awkwardly sprawled across the bed, holding down the pillow. "I caught the mouse!" I announced.

Within another minute the Husband had the mouse imprisoned between a Tupperware and a piece of cardboard. Upon my pleading for its life, on the grounds of its littleness and cuteness, he took it far away from the house and released it. And hopefully it stayed there to live happily ever after. The End.

Epilogue
Just a few nights later, I stayed up late surfing the Internet in the living room. I heard the soft clunk of the cat door into the garage opening--immediately followed by a horrible shrill squeaking sound.

All along, that darn cat was catching mice in the garage and bringing them into our room to play with!

He fled across the house, his shiny new live squeaky toy in overdrive, as I frantically pursued him, scream-whispering "YOU BLASTED CAT! Get back here! NO!!" to no avail...straight under our bed he ran, and released the mouse. I glared at him and briefly debated revenge in the form of throwing him outside for the coyotes, but sanity prevailed and I went upstairs to sleep in the spare bedroom instead ;-)

Teddy despatched that mouse in the foyer; I found it the next day. And from that day on, my nighttime routine included putting Teddy and his food and water in the garage, and locking the cat door!

@futurethinker @promo-mentors