my roommate recently returned to our bronx apartment, and her first inquiry pertaining to the status of our abode was "how's the mouse situation?"
i responded, "well, i haven't seen it."
which is true. but had she asked, "have you intuited the presence of the mouse using any of your other senses?" it would have been a lie not to say yes.
she is petrified of the mouse. when it first made its presence known, she didn't use the kitchen for a week. i didn't want to hinder her eating habits, but i am pretty sure house mouse is still living in the space between our oven and wall.
several days ago, i surrendered my bed to my visiting sister and got cozy on the couch. while lying under my fleece blanket contemplating the complications of human existence before sleep overtook me, i heard a bizarre skittering noise. i couldn't place the sound. was someone gently scratching the front door with metallic nails? was someone lightly throwing coins in rapid succession against our windows? then it became obvious.
the mouse was still among us.
i mustered the courage to rise from the couch to try to catch the mouse in the act of emerging from its home behind the oven, but it was no where to be seen. so i settled back into the comfort of couch cushions. after the passage of several moments, the patter of tiny clawed feet happened again. i rose again. saw nothing, but i tried to make as much noise as i felt i could responsibly make at 2 am to intimidate the mouse. but minutes after laying down once more, house mouse defiantly rose from the chasm to the counters a third time. so i ran over and made even more noise, forsaking all obligations of being a respectful roommate.
this time as i lay under the blanket, i began to feel the creeping wave of mouse fear. i'd thought my roommate's terror was unjustified, but in the early hours of the morning, i was also afflicted. i tried to reason myself out of being scared: mice are tiny! they are even kind of cute! stuart little! ratatouille! mickey! i once caught one with my friends while playing near an abandoned railroad track and named him rufus humperdink, iii! i could snap its back with one finger--maybe not my pinky, but definitely my pointer! why i am i terrified?
none of my attempts to minimize the mouse's potential to incite fear were working, so to conquer this mouse anxiety, i counter-intuitively began to think of all the ways mice are horrifying: they have no bones! the can squeeze through holes the size of a dime! they leave a trail of urine everywhere they go so they can find their way back!
then i began to consider the worst possible thing house mouse could do to me.
i figured the very most horrific thing the mouse could do was jump into my mouth and furiously begin biting my tongue, cheeks, tonsils, uvula, etc. and then jump down my throat while carrying hantavirus.
somehow, considering the worst made me feel better. because i really didn't think the mouse had quite the audacity to enter my mouth, and if i got hantavirus i wouldn't have to go to work for a while, at least.
and that was that. morning came. i had no puncture wounds on my mouth and i went on to live my life.
but last night, i heard the familiar skittering again. i turned on the kitchen light and ran to the oven. i didn't clearly see the mouse, but i think i got a fleeting glimpse. there was definite essence of mouse existence.
and then, this morning, i was stoked to eat a scrambled egg sandwich for breakfast, but as a laid the pieces of chia seed bread on my plate, i realized both slices appeared to have bite marks. i looked at the bag, and saw that all of the remaining loaf seemed to have a chunk missing and--the clincher--there was a small hole in the plastic bag. did you know the order name rodentia comes from the latin verb rodere which means "to gnaw"?
house mouse!
i refused to let house mouse ruin the breakfast that had given me the inspiration to get out of bed. so i just cut off the bit around the bite mark. (really, food prices have skyrocketed over the past few years, and i wanted the sandwich real bad.)
i want to catch house mouse and preserve the sanctity of any future bread loaves that i may leave on the counter. but i don't want house mouse to die. i may invest in a humane trap, and capture my nemesis and let him free somewhere far beyond alexander avenue.
in my teen years, i was a notorious mouse killer. not that i killed a lot of mice. i only killed one, but i did so with really purposeful intensity. i was at a church girls' camp. one of our leaders had been afraid of mice roaming the floors and rafters of the cabin and had placed traps throughout the place. one of these traps snapped late in the night. but after the snapping there was a gentle thrashing. the mouse had not died. it would suffer through night, unless someone stepped up. it was a mercy killing, really. of the roughly dozen girls in the cabin, i got out of bed and located a shovel propped against the wall and began beating the spade against the bouncing mouse trap and its fighting captive. soon the captive was fighting no more.
for years, people would bring up how i killed a mouse in the middle of the night with a shovel. and i always interject, "it was a compassionate killing!"
so, i don't want house mouse to die. it has been a formidable foe. it deserves to live.
just not behind my oven.
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