a mouse in the house!

I caught a mouse.
In my house.
With my own two hands. Well, with my own two hands and a jar and a magazine.

Last Friday evening I was in my kitchen when out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash across the kitchen floor. I did a double take and realized it was a mouse. Naturally, I screamed, jumped up onto the kitchen counter and hollered at my son to come and take care of it.
He chased it around the kitchen and ended up throwing an afghan on top of it.
Like that's going to do a lot of good.
The mouse ran under the refrigerator and didn't dare come back out.
I texted my husband and told him to bring home a mouse trap.
Now just so we're clear on this...we own storage units and mice are NOT good things to have around storage units. Customers get a little annoyed when they open up their units and mice have made nests out of their favorite recliners. For that reason, we keep lots and lots of mouse/rat traps. BUT, they're not the ones that snap and kill the mice. They're square, black, plastic boxes with one-way entrances and no exits. THAT'S what I wanted him to bring home. But he didn't.
He did, however, see the mouse later that night, running across the kitchen floor and into a small opening under one of the kitchen cabinets.
Which brings me to today. As I was in my kitchen, making bread pudding, being the domestic diva that I am, I again saw the mouse skittering across the floor. Only this time he wasn't moving so fast. In fact, he was downright slow. Kinda loping along.
Is it even possible for a mouse to lope?
Anyways...I chased him into the living room and he ran...err...loped behind my desk. I ran to the other side of my desk, and he turned around and went back the other way and back into the kitchen. I grabbed an empty jar out of my recycling bucket, and a magazine, and tried to trap him in it, but he was headed for the same spot under the kitchen cabinets that he had disappeared into the other day.
Fortunately, I was able to block his path with the magazine and scoop him into the jar.
I gotta say...he's the cutest little mouse I've ever seen.
I really don't like mice, but this one is different. He's just so cute. He has big black ears and is really tiny. I don't think he's a regular mouse.
Well, I took him outside and dumped him in the bushes by the lake, between our house and the neighbors. I hope he doesn't find his way back into the house.
Oh, and sorry Mrs. Keiburtz...I hope he doesn't find his way into your house, either!

I just really wish I'd taken a picture so I have proof, cause my hubby's never going to believe this!

Someday I'm going to have to write the story of when we had rats. Ay yi yi.