Because readers could relate to a "mouse in the house"...

When my friends think something is funny, I then feel good writing about it. I ran this idea about the "mouse in our house" on a blog recently and because of the response (you understood my problem) it grew into this column in our local paper.
Thanks a lot!

Sherlock “Homes”… I need you!

OK - So I'm NOT Sherlock Holmes (corrected spelling). But I could use some detective help.

Every autumn out here in the country it seems like a mouse decides to move in with us for a while. But then the little critter gets lost and ends up staying permanently!
And that leaves quite a smell! Whew!
The problem is that until the smell gets REALLY BAD you can't pin point where it's coming from! It's just ALL OVER the house!
(I know I'm using a lot of exclamation points but THIS IS REALLY GETTING BAD!)

Even the very cells of your nose seem permeated with the odor of dead mouse. Every sniff you breathe reeks of dead mouse.
When you go to town you wonder… maybe it’s not just my sense of smell. Do my clothes smell too?
You worry as you walk into the city hall council chambers for a meeting… is everyone going to turn and point and cry out… “Euuuch! Dead mouse smell!”

It’s actually a relief to head out to the horse barn because it smells good out there! Although as I pulled open a drawer holding some tack supplies, a fat brown mouse was peering up at me. I took the drawer outside and tipped him out into the grass.
No barn cats in sight. They’re nice and fat already I guess.
Maybe I should let the barn cats in the house for awhile. They’re allowed in the laundry room on especially cold winter nights. But by now this mouse is probably stuck somewhere inside a wall.

Maybe I should move into the barn!
It might be a compliment if someone said, “Where you living… in a barn?”

Last year I found a decaying mouse in the air return vent in a downstairs bedroom. This morning I heard something drop in the attic.
I guess that means the whole house gets a cleaning! (That's an overwhelming thought to this "housekeeping challenged" person... hopefully I can find the mouse first!)