Mousecapades

I am not a fan of rodents. As pets or anything else. Sure, mice can look cute but they leave their little droppings all over the place and scurry about, scaring the bejesus out of me.

I used to live in a cottage which is a nice way of saying, a converted garage. For most of my time there (5 years), I would hear something crawling in the wall. Then I discovered, when I pulled my couch away from the wall, a horrendous odor. My phone line was crackling and the service was shoddy. I called the service guy out and much to my horror, he declared that mice had been PEEING in my wall and all the insulation was soaked with mice urine. Ewwwww. Mortified, I called my landlord and declared a State of Emergency. Terror level: Red! We went about setting poison and traps. And then, we waited.

The breaking point was when I came home from a night of drinking, went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and when I looked over to my left, there on my wicker hamper was a small gray mouse twitching its nose at me. Of course I freaked the fuck out as it scurried under the water heater closet door. In times like this, I call my Mom. She basically told me there was nothing I could do about it that late at night and I should go to bed.

Um, excuse me? How am I supposed to sleep with that furry, diseased thing scampering around my house. What if it climbs into my bed? I am not safe! So, I did what any logical, insane person would do- I baracaded the door with towels and foil and tape. There was no way that fucker was getting out.

But they just kept multiplying. My dog wasn't any help. She'd just ignore them. Then one day I was on the phone with Dumpling and one ran across the floor in front of me. I screamed and jumped on the couch. (God, could I be MORE the epitome of a girl? I teach self-defense and yet, I am afraid of a little mouse!) He told me he would come over to help me and in the meantime, I made an elaborate maze for the mouse to run through in an effort to get it outside. There were stereo speakers, chairs, stacks of books and cds lining a pathway to the door. The poor thing was so scared when we moved the bookshelf, exposing its hiding place, I felt more sorry for it than scared of it.

My landlord had told me that he and his wife had sucked up mice with their vacuum and then emptied the bag out in a field and the mice ran free and wild, happy to be alive. I figured I could do that too. I wanted to be humane. So we got the vacuum ready and counted to three as Dumpling poised the detatchable hose before the mouse. At three I hit the power button and the mouse went whooomp! into the hose. Then all of a sudden, the sound from the vacuum was vastly different. Uh oh. This wasn't supposed to happen!

The mouse was stuck.

We killed it. The passageway of the hose grew too narrow at one point and we broke its back. I felt truly terrible. We put it in a shoe box and took it out to a field. It wasn't quite the scenario we had pictured but we did pause and think nice thoughts for the mouse's peaceful rest. I still feel bad about it.

Moral of this story kids? Don't try sucking a mouse through a vacuum. It is a very bad idea.