I went down to my kitchen this morning--as I do every weekday at eight o'clock. And proceeded to do what I do every day: #1 inspect the counter/stove for mouse droppings (not finding any, I thought to myself "thank goodness there was no mice action in this kitchen last night!") #2 sprayed disinfectant cleaner everywhere and began to wipe it off (just in case)...
Yes, perhaps I sound a bit OCD. But the thing is, I live in a rowhouse in Canton. I live in rodent infested Baltimore. And I've been living with mice for 15 months.
It all started two November's ago. That night, all was quiet--there were no drunk kids in the alley smashing beer bottles, no screaming crack heads across the way. I was fitfully sleeping. Until suddenly, I was awakened. For a minute, I was totally confused by the little rustling noises I heard not a foot from my head, until immediately, like some sixth sense--I knew there was a mouse in my bag.
I know what you're thinking--well yes, I
had left a half eaten cinnamon muffin in there--but this wasn't the first time. Did I deserve to have mice in my bedroom just cause there was food in my bag? Does a girl in a short skirt get raped cause she's asking for it? The answer is no!
"Keith!" "Keith!" I whispered urgently. "Uhmm," Keith grumbled. "There's a mouse in here!" "Come on," he mumbled.
At this point, I could see I had to take matters into my own hands. I flicked on my bedside light. At that moment, like a scene from a cartoon, a small gray mouse squealed and poked his head out the top of my bag. We stared at each other for only a moment before it jumped. And yes, I thought it might jump into my bed--being merely inches away. But the tiny thing ran underneath it, where all my poems were waiting to be revised. Let's just say I didn't get much sleep that night. Although the next day, I did find myself joking that it was a very literate mouse--my poetry mouse.
It's been fifteen months since that night. Fifteen months of mouse droppings and trying to tell myself, "It's only one mouse." Fifteen months of my family and friends telling me all I have to do is put out one of those snap traps...But the thing is, no matter how much I despise having mice in my house--I'm not going to kill them.
Around the time of the-mouse-in -the -bedroom incident, I bought an expensive trap online. This see-through green plastic trap in the shape of a house had garnered rave reviews. One man said he had caught 35 mice in the first night. I, on the other hand, had only one mouse, and I was about to catch it.
Much to my chagrin, night after night, the trap was ignored until it was finally relegated to the trash. I searched the web and found trapping ideas involving huge platic trash cans and peanut butter and paper towel tubes. Nothing. I gave up--taking everything off the kitchen counter so the vermin would have nothing to hide behind, and pretended they'd gone away.
One night, I'd done the dishes before going to school. My husband was sitting in the adjacent room, studying, so I didn't hasten to put the dishes away immediately. Nothing could happen while Keith's right there, I told myself....So I went to class. When I got home, I decided I really should put those dishes away before going to bed...I'd put all but one small frying pan away. I lifted it up...only to find a mouse cowering beneath! Again, we exchanged looks, until it scrambled behind the stove.
Yes, this really could be an epic. At work, the little boy I take care of has oodles of mouse books. Why do children's book authors think mice are so cute and sweet? Why must they make mice prowling through kitchens at night and stealing food into a cute thing (see the book Mouse Mess). Recently, people have begun to tell me, you don't just have a mouse Jenn, it's your mouse! And at Christmas, I even joked about hanging a stocking for my mouse.
I forget what happened to really make me mad--but a few months ago--I declared war. Oh yes, now I remember. It was when the mice not only got into the spice cupboard and ate old packets of dried Tibetan butter tea, but chomped holes through two pairs of my underwear!!!
War meant getting out some new traps I'd bought a year ago and abandoned in the basement knowing they'd never work. They've been sitting on the counter now for at least a month. I don't even bother checking them in the mornings as I know there'll never be anything in them. Perhaps just a dropping close by.
But this morning, as I was cleaning around the trap, I noticed it was covered in tiny pieces of styrafoam. That's odd, I thought. Then I noticed it's two doors were shut...
And so I've caught a mouse. As I write, it's still sitting in the trap down on the counter cause I have to wait for Keith to get home from his test so we can drive it five miles away so it won't come back...
You would think I'd be so happy I've finally caught one of my nemesis. But to be honest, I really have mixed feelings. It's so quiet in there, and really tiny. It must be a baby! Everyone else is too smart to go in there. And what about all that styrafoam? Keith joked that his family brought it as they visited him, scratching their tiny claws against his cage, trying to get him out. Saying to each other, "Okay, it's 7:45, they get down here at 8. We have fifteen more minutes--we can do it!" Are the mouse and it's family really so sad to be separated? The Beverly Cleary book, Ralph S. Mouse (which I just had to read at work)--definitely leads me to believe so. But maybe that's not a reliable source? Most frightening of all, if it is a baby--how many more are there????
Not only are mice in my house--they're in my dreams!!!! But in about two hours--there's going to be one less!
