Dear mice,

Please don't get the wrong idea by the scattered food on the floor left by my children, you are not welcome. You are not welcome to scamper around on my countertops when we are sleeping, leaving your perfect claw prints in the dusting of flour I forgot to wipe up. You are not welcome to traipse through our drawers, dropping filthy excrement in our spoons, spatulas and tupperware. How do you get in our drawers anyway? It's rather disturbing. You are not welcome to run around our family room at your leisure, hiding your chewed up refuse behind my piano.

I've seen you run, I know you're guilty. Now every bug that flies in the corner of my vision, every shadow, every movement becomes a mouse, and that is not ok.

We have waged war on your kind before and won. This is war again. You are welcome to move outside, where the weather is lovely, the growth is abundant and the traps aren't set. In the last two nights we have already claimed two of your buddies, who left the house in paper bags, never to scamper again. Stay, if your wish for the same fate. The choice is yours.

Sincerely,
The Peterson Posse