I was sitting in my room at home, which was a long white rectangular room with my bed on the far side away from the door. A large chute came in from the adjoining, central room of the house, presumably for food. I took pride in keeping my room very clean and pest-free, but I knew now that it was warmer that the mice would start invading the house.

I saw the first one, spotted black and white like a dairy cow, dart in from the chute. It was too fast for me, and a second, much smaller white one was close behind. As I stalked the length of my room, the floor suddenly gave way right at the end of my bed. I looked down to see a dark brown pit of mud soaking through the white carpet and slowly spreading. Just as I was reaching the heights of frustration and despair, my mom and sister decided it was time to go shopping.

In the car, I checked in on my room through a video link to my cell phone. The place was completely overrun with hundreds of mice, and the mud had caved in half of my floor. My mom and sister, realizing that it would affect the entire house if left alone, diverted to the local library to look for advice. I called up an exterminator, who sounded like a typical New York tough guy, and frantically explained the situation. He told me his team could be there by Monday at the earliest. I nearly exploded, saying that this was emergency and that the house would be lost if we waited two days. He told me good luck in finding anyone else who’d do it sooner, and I hung up on him.

I decided to take care of things myself, and I got on the elevator to the car park. Surprisingly, it went horizontally, nearly knocking me over as it sped backwards through the different parking zones. Suddenly, I was back home, and had rigged up a large vacuum device (I’ve been using a small one a lot at work to suck up used-up solutions) hooked up to a large plastic cage. In no time flat, all but two of the mice were sucked through the tiny opening: I could see them flatten out in the tubes and fly, unharmed, into the cage. The only two left were a medium sized black one and a 5-day old mouse (you get to a point where you can tell how old a mouse is as long as they’re under 20 days of age). The cage was absolutely packed, so I decided to pick up the last two with grocery bags. As I lunged for the older one, I felt a squish under my left foot. Of course, I had stepped on the little mouse and now it was stuck to my sock, so I threw out my sock along with it.

My mom suddenly pointed to the cage, and instead of a hundred little mice, there was one giant white one. As we watched it, we realized it had no air left to breathe. We quickly took off the lid, but it was too late. It shriveled as it died, and by the time my sister picked it up, it was a third of its original size. Although the mice were gone, the floor was still ruined by the mud, and I sat down to contemplate what to do next.

Suddenly, Stephen Colbert showed up, and sat down at a table that had appeared. I sat a few feet from him, but watching as if it was a show. The view switched to across the table, where another Colbert sat down (in the real show, he often debates himself by switching camera angles). The first Colbert picked up a plum from a bowlful and took a bite. The second Colbert said “oh, you want a fruit-eating challenge?” and picked one up from a bowl on his side. The camera kept switching from one to the other, dramatically showing each bite. The tension built… and built… and then I woke up.