The year of the mouse {Clemson Reunion weekend}

Seems like a strange title. I'll get to that.

This year the Clemson Reunion weekend was for the Va Tech game. This is one of my favorite weekends every year because all of my college roommates and close Clemson friends get together. This year it was for the Clemson vs. Va Tech game in late October. We rented a house from an alum's ad on craigslist who I met and talked to before getting the key and giving him a check (turns out his wife works at the bank too). This was the first time they decided to rent the place. It was 10 minutes away from campus with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths... very hard to find places so close by. My college roomie Brooke and Lauren who was her roommate in Charlotte were staying in the the house too.

We arrived on Friday afternoon and dropped our stuff at the house before heading downtown. It was not too hard to find and the pictures I was given were accurate... it was an older home on the lake but we did not care. We were basically only going to be there to sleep.

rental house back deck view

We ate dinner downtown and hung out at Tigertown Tavern with everyone, a tradition. We are all about traditions.

 

Then the 4 of us went back to the house and went to bed. Then at about 3am.

Me: Eric, I hear something.
Eric: What
Me: It sounds like scratching. Like it's in the walls. Don't you hear that?
Eric: It's outside, go back to sleep.
Me: Okay

Fast forward to 6:45am when we wake up to gasps and shrieking.

Eric: Is that Brooke?
Me: Yes
Eric goes out in the hall to Brooke who has her door open and is standing in her room saying she saw something.
Eric: it's a mouse. Don't worry they are afraid of people.
Mouse darts into hallway and around the upstairs and even bounded down the spiral staircase like an Olympian.
Cue girl hysteria. (Actually to be fair Lauren was pretty calm since apparently she had dealt with some mice in her house)
Then another one darts from Brooke's bedroom into the bathroom. We named the original mouse Chester. I tried to tell myself that Chester just wanted to leave his family and go be a chef in Paris but that wasn't quite working (yes I realize that was a rat, not a mouse).

Apparently what I was hearing was not outside thankyouverymuch. Thank goodness I did not know what it was at the time.

Several minutes later the mice were no longer around. Brooke took all her stuff out of that room and moved it to Lauren's and we stuffed towels under her door. Since towels definitely keep mice trapped in. We had only awoken a little bit before our alarms anyway so we all got ready for a full day of tailgating and football!

It was a little chilly in the morning but actually felt good. There was plenty of eating (I brought fruit salad and mini muffins), cornhole playing and we did get to tell our mouse tale as well.

Another tradition... mimosas. This year in style... I brought the mason jars and the straws which made us feel fancy.

Roomie love.

It was a noon game so it had warmed up for going into the stadium. I didn't even need my jacket. We were in the upper deck fairly high but had a great view of the field.

Yay for a Tiger win! The usual ring picture...

After the game I got to meet up with Mary Ellen to give her a onesie and see her adorable baby bump!

After stopping to see a few others along the way, we had lunch at the tailgate with burgers, hotdogs, and lots of sides. This was a double recipe of the Beef Cheeseball shaped like a football that I made.

Tillman 920 girls. (ignore the color on the next few, trying to get these color corrected... who knows why my camera on ISO-Auto thought it needed to be at 1800 during the daytime outside grrr)

Keith and Megan were also at this game with one of Megan's friends so they came to hang out for awhile and we took some family pics.

Once it got dark we packed up the tailgate and headed downtown to hang at TTT again.

Then we said our goodbyes (many were leaving early in the morning) and the 4 of us headed back to the house after a stop at the good ole Central Walmart for mouse traps and peanut butter to put in them.

Eric put out the mouse traps and we checked around everywhere for the mice but saw no sign of them. We got ready for bed and had Brooke sleep in Lauren's room. A couple of hours later I woke up to the scratching again and woke up Eric. Then I saw Chester running up our bedroom door! No lie. We jumped up onto the bed fully awake at this point but then the mouse was no longer on the door.

I really had to pee so I made Eric check the hallway and bathroom. Despite Eric repeatedly declaring that mice were afraid of people, I made him stand in the bathroom with me. Then mid-pee the mouse darts under the bathroom door, through Eric and towards me. Naturally I freak out and jump into the shower right next to me and the mouse runs into the bathroom closet. So much for being afraid of people and so much for the mouse traps!

Clearly there was no way we were going back to sleep in that house so we went and slept/rested in the car. Thankfully Brooke and Lauren slept through all that.

Sunday morning it was time to depart the mouse house... they were off to get Brooke to the airport and Eric and I headed to one of my favorite eating places in Clemson, Pot Belly Deli, for breakfast. I was even able to get a chicken salad sandwich MY FAVORITE and put it in the cooler for lunch later.

We went to campus for a bit to take some pictures of Tillman Hall and Bowman field before heading home.

We had such a great time at this year's reunion and as Brooke said, we will always remember this as the year of the mouse! Not so funny at the time but I'm sure it will bring laughs in the future. The owners actually had no idea about the mice and were so apologetic and gave us a huge discount. If they completely take care of the mouse problem we might consider staying there again...