It all started a few weeks ago when I noticed a package of cookies in our pantry with a few cookies missing. This in itself was not all that unusual. With three kids in the house, I'm lucky if I ever see a cookie. But this package had a small hole ripped in the side and a tiny trail of crumbs heading toward a hole in the wall. I'm no Columbo, but I suspected mice.

I've dealt with mice before, usually by setting traps. But traps are a pain. Before they go off, I have to worry about some unsuspecting family member getting snapped. After they go off and there's a mouse in there, I have to worry about my wife finding it before I do. The screams can be heard two towns over. Glasses in our china cabinet could shatter.

So this year, I decided to put out poison bait. Poison is easy, and it does the job. But it has, I found, one major drawback. Mice eat the bait, wander off and drop dead.

The problem is they don't come out into the middle of the room, holding their stomachs, saying, "You dirty rat ..." before keeling over. Instead, they wander off to some secluded spot before breathing their mousy last breath. Often that spot is somewhere inside a baseboard, or under the floor. Over the next week or so, they produce a stench that could make your teeth fall out. And the only way to find that spot would be to rip out a wall or two. Clearly, I had made a big mistake.

Regular readers might point out that the McKay house has never smelled all that great, but this was crossing a line. Before anyone noticed, I ran to the store and purchased one of those plug-in air fresheners. I had a lot of choices, including Apple Cinnamon and Hawaiian Breeze. The Apple Cinnamon burned my nose, and the Hawaiian Breeze smelled like one of those things you hang from your rear-view mirror when you want your car to stop smelling so bad. I picked French Vanilla. To my mind, it smelled like cookies baking.

The first day, my teenage daughter came in the front door, looked at me, and asked why we had Play-Doh in the house. I told her indignantly that it was not just regular vanilla, but a French Vanilla air freshener. She shook her head made a gagging face. Minutes later, her sister walked in, winced, and said, while sticking her tongue out, "What's with the Play-Doh smell, Dad?"

"It is," I said, with a voice tinged with aggravation (actually, I sounded kind of like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining"), "French Vanilla!" As time went on, I began to like the smell. Our house would stop smelling like dead rodent and start smelling like Santa's House, Grandma's House and the Keebler Tree House.

My wife was even worse. She came in, looked at me, and said, "Whatever you did, don't do it again!" The only one who didn't complain was our teenage son. I'm not all that sure he would have noticed the mouse smell, let alone the scent of cookies baking.

Soon after, I noticed that every time I'd leave the room, someone would unplug my plug-in. It would be sitting on the floor right below the socket, doing nobody any good. I'd do what I normally do in cases like this: stand there and shout out that someone was going to be really, really sorry if this happened again. But it didn't work out so well. It happened again — and again.

The mouse smell was gone, but this was starting to get on my nerves. At least once a day, I'd have to walk by, plug in the French Vanilla thingy and yell at everybody in general and nobody in particular that they were really starting to tick me off. (I'm no Columbo, but I was starting to smell a conspiracy.)

Then one day when I was distracted, I walked in the house, sniffed for a moment, and thought, "Play-Doh?" They were right. Our house didn't smell like the Keebler Tree House. It smelled like a pre-school on craft day. I walked over, unplugged the plug-in and stomped off.

I haven't given up, though. I may opt for a nice Hawaiian Breeze next time I smell a rat.

To find out more about Peter McKay, please visit www.creators.com.