The Need for a Better Mousetrap

We went to a friend’s birthday party last night and left the mousetrap set (and all four pets locked in various rooms of the house).  We were gone eight hours, arriving home late to find that our mouse adventure had just begun.

11:30 p.m.

We get home and as I hustle Maya past the kitchen to the backyard, I hear Bill say “no mouse…no mousetrap”. 

11:40 p.m.

I finally get both Gracie and Maya outside and return to the kitchen to discover that Bill is right.  There is no mouse, and the mousetrap we left has also disappeared.  There is a surprising amount of blood on the floor, including trails of spatter along the floorboards.  I am horrified.  We’d had a discussion about humane traps, and Bill insisted on getting the cheap 50 cent traps that are supposed to snap their necks instantly.  I had no idea that it might just maim the poor thing.

11:42 p.m.

I feel my stomach churning, my eyes filling with tears, and my breathing get perilously close to hyperventilating.  Bill suggests that I go wait in the next room.  I feel like after I’ve taken an active role in torturing this poor creature, it’s my responsibility to see it through.

11:45 p.m.

We find a flashlight and start looking all around the room, under each piece of furniture and in all the cupboards.  Bill gets the end of a broom and uses it like a pole to drag things out of the drawers, apparently preferring to stay 10 feet away from the injured rodent.  At this point, he is also wearing work gloves and has his jeans tucked into his socks.

12:05 a.m.

We’ve pulled apart every cushion, emptied out the drawers under the sink, and are still unsuccessful.  Bill pulls out the refrigerator, an inch at a time.  I’m beginning to expect a raccoon-sized mouse to appear at any moment—fangs bared and frothing at the mouth.

12:07 a.m.

With the refrigerator pulled almost all the way out, Bill jumps about 8 inches in the air and announces he’s found the mouse, and that it’s still attached to the trap.  I nearly vomit.

12:08 a.m.

Bill gets a broom and sets a trash can on its side.  In a delicate and horrible move, he sweeps the trap into the trashcan, having to reach down and flick it with his gloved hand to get over the lip of the can.  I breathe a sigh of relief. Then Bill gazes into the trashcan and says “the mouse isn’t there”.  That’s right, it’s escaped the trap.

12:10 a.m.

We look under the refrigerator (expecting to be attacked at any moment by the frantic creature) but can’t see anything.  Bill notes that they can climb up into the refrigerator mechanism.  He looks at me with weariness writ large and asks me what I want to do.  I tell him there is no option: we have to find it.  (He’s leaving for a week in San Francisco in 6 hours and I’m not going to living in a house where there is an injured animal.)  We start unloading the refrigerator.

12:20 a.m.

With sofa cushions laid on the floor, Bill lowers the refrigerator on its side while I stand guard at the foot of the machine, ready to do something dramatic [not sure what] should the mouse appear.  It doesn’t, and we realize that the vents at the bottom of the refrigerator are REALLY tiny and that the mouse would have to be an acrobat to have wedged its way inside.  We are stumped.

12:23 a.m.

I look at the pantry doors adjacent to the refrigerator, and a light goes off in my head.  Carefully maneuvering around the refrigerator (which, on its side, is now taking up most of the kitchen floor space), we open up the pantry doors and Bill uses the broom end to jab and poke at the stuff cluttering the floor.

12:24 a.m.

“There it is.”  Bill locates the mouse, and I get my first glimpse of the beast and my heart crumples at the sight of the ball of fur—not 2 inches long.  I only see it for a second through the gap in the pantry door before turning my attention to locating the garbage can and various other implements to block up various tiny escape routes.

12:25 a.m.

I will gloss over the next 10 minutes.  Trust me, you don’t want to know. 

12:35 a.m.

With the mouse remains safely in the outside trash can, we proceed to move the refrigerator back into place (Bill), restock it with slightly warm food (both of us), and mop up the mouse blood (me).

12:55 a.m.

Finally in bed, I come very close to having a complete nervous breakdown.  I don’t think I have ever felt guilt like this.  What’s weird is that I could easily break the legs of a human intruder and not feel a whit of regret, but the idea of that poor furry little mouse spending its last hours…too much.

Today

Starting today, there can be no safer place in the world for stray mice than our house.  After last night, I will happily tuck them into bed each night and feed them bits of (vegan) cheese by hand.  I promise the mice of the world, we can all just get along.  I’ve learned my lesson.

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[Lauren]

*hug*