They creep and squeeze themselves into our homes. While we may not actually see them, we do run across their “evidence,” usually in the most awful places. But there’s really no good place to find a mouse dropping.

Mice. If you’re enjoying rural living, you’ve probably got ’em. This time of year, the little mice are all looking for a cozy, warm place to spend the winter. Who isn’t, really? Why don’t mice have the smarts to hitch a ride to Florida, like the “snowbirds”?

But no. Instead, they creep and squeeze themselves into our homes. While we may not actually see them, we do run across their “evidence,” usually in the most awful places. I guess, though, there is no good place to find a mouse dropping.

Oh dear. Those droppings might show up in our silverware drawer, somewhere near the stove, or where we keep the pots and pans. God forbid, but I found them on my kitchen counter one morning. Not a good way to start the day.

During the summer, mice have every business to be, and stay, outside. Not at my place. They’ve adopted my screened porch, darn them. One night, they even knocked over a cute little doggie figurine. Throughout this past summer, I had to keep a sharp eye out for those tiny black cylindrical leavings every time I went out to my porch table to eat lunch or dinner.

It’s not that I’m a slob. It’s not that I carelessly leave cookie crumbs, bits of bread crusts, or a piece of chip on the table, or the floor underneath. I police my dining area thoroughly after I eat, for just this reason. Despite the still-bum knee, I bend over and pick up teensy crumbs around my chair.

Yet, still they come.

Now, I’ve discovered there’s a danged mouse living in my car! Yes. The telltale black cylinders, on a seat or the cup holder. I opened the glove compartment to stash my registration and — yikes — saw the spare napkins I keep there for an occasional spill had been shredded to create a mouse boudoir.

By the way, I never, ever eat in my car.

I can’t figure those folks who drive down the road munching on a messy burger. How do they do it? Why?

What’s the big attraction for a mouse to creep into my car every night and make himself at home? (I hope he’s creeping in at night and leaving in the morning; I absolutely do NOT want him to scamper across my foot as I’m negotiating a mountain curve.)

I have but one recourse: Buy boxes of little green mouse poison, and drive around with one in the glove compartment and prominently displayed somewhere near the dashboard. Argh!

And then what? Sometimes, I do not drive anywhere for days on end. My car sits out there in the heat, closed up tight.

I truly do not want to get in, smell something ghastly, and then have to remove a body.

A former city girl I know had her first mouse encounter shortly after moving here. While she was asleep, one ran up the sleeve of her nightgown. Welcome to the country! Her solution was creative: She got a bunch of those tiny brown paper “candy” bags. Bought a lot of mouse traps, baited them, put them deep inside the bags. During the night, she’d hear the snap(s). In the morning, bag and all went right outside to the garbage can.

Heaven only knows what my basement looks like. There’s probably a mouse circus, or bustling community of some sort, going on down there. I haven’t crept into my creepy basement for several years now. If perchance I should want something from down there, I dispatch the housekeeper. She’s worth her pay for that task alone. I do know that, if I place one of those green poison boxes at the top of the stairs, it’s been all gobbled up by morning. Gad!

Speaking of that basement, here’s my plan: Leave all that once-important, now-moldering stuff that my mother and I stashed down there during the past 25 or so years right where it is. If I haven’t needed it in that time, I don’t need it at all. After I’m gone, the basement, mice and all, becomes this: The estate auctioneer’s problem!

I actually think mice are kind of cute. Provided they keep their distance. I’m willing to live and let live, so long as they steer clear of my silverware drawer. And my nightgown.