Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Caralyn: 1 Mickey: 0

Well, I've done it. I've officially caught my first mouse.

Due to the high Munchkin content of my living situation, I opted for glue traps over those spring loaded suckers because, honestly, you just never know where those pudgy little fingers are going to go.

And... after four days of nudging glue traps around to new locations with my foot, convinced I had the one mouse with a high enough intelligence quotient to avoid glue traps, I woke up around 2am this morning to a scrabbling. That's right, a scrabbling. I laid there, eyes wide and unseeing, pulling the sheets up to my chin in unholy terror...until I remembered it was 2 degrees hotter than the sun on the third floor of my house, and immediately kicked the covers off. I still didn't go downstairs though. I wasn't ready to face Mickey if he was still in his death throes.

Little did I know, death throes actually last a looooong-ass time.

Midnight-Montage on forward a few hours, and I'm stumbling downstairs in my all-together...because I refused to make the final trip to the basement to retrieve clothes and underthings from the dryer last night before bed. scrabble::scrabble. I sweartogod I jumped three feet. There's Mickey, stuck from the back hips down and front paws forward to the glue trap. He's wriggling and writhing to the point that the glue trap is actually catching air time. His little mousey back bowing so hard in the air the trap is jumping. I race back upstairs, ordering the kids to stay in their rooms, and grab an empty shoe box. ( was one of my favorites, a dark purple shoebox from the last pair of Chinese Laundry I bought. cute shoes. anyway...) I toss the box over Mickey. At this point Baz is attempting to creep down the stairs...bouncing around a little on the balls of his feet trying to catch a peek. Great.
I herd The Chitlins back upstairs to finish brushing teeth and getting dressed... and make them all promise to stay upstairs and color or something for a few minutes.

I scoot back down the stairs, slide a piece of sturdy carboard under the twitching shoe box and carry it into the kitchen. I slide the mouse & trap into a plastic bag and knot the top. And now I face a dilemma. Having gotten a good look at it's cute little self...and it's sad little cow-eyes...I can't quite bring myself to just toss it into the garbage to starve to death... It seems cruel, as if the glue trap isn't? I know..I know.. Baz yells down asking if I've killed it yet.
oh god, I'm going to have to kill it.
I can hear the kids sneaking back down the stairs, so I sweep the bag out to the back yard and lay it on the ground. I heft Baz's wiffle ball bat...but I don't think I can actually whack the little guy. Especially knowing that with a plastic bat I'll have to use several whacks,which I assume I'll be incapable of completing. So, I improvise. My backyard is essentially a bricked in courtyard, and often the bricks come loose. I usually keep the loose bricks in a pile in the corner until I can replace/repair them. So I give plastic baggie Mickey a toss on the ground and heft a brick.
Those of you with weak stomachs should probably stop reading here:

But not really.

Really I hefted a brick and dropped it on Mickey. He stopped moving. But, afraid I'd only increased its suffering instead of ending it, I quickly dropped another brick on it. This one might have been more tossed or even thrown, than dropped really... I nearly threw up. Then I grabbed a corner of the bag with my thumb and first finger, the way a baby picks up cheerios, exactly and with as little surface contact as possible, and carried it at arms length to the trash can.
I went back in, washed my hands, twice, used some hand sanitizer and re-showered. Then shuffled everyone off to their respective stops and daycares that day, unsure of how I'm going to explain Mommy's new status as a murder-death-killer to my kids. (did you get the random movie reference? huh? didja?)

How do you tell your kids you killed something?
I know how I told the people at the office: With a full cup of coffee and lots of hand gestures and jumping about... And I know that in a day or so this is going to be funny...really it is. But other than the random bug or snail, this is the first thing I've actually killed. And, I suppose I should be pleased about the fact that it upsets me, even if only to prove I'm not completely desensitized... right?



  1. Dude. Bruce used those traps in his garage and I couldn't handle the mouse's little tiny squeaks for help. I bashed its little brains in with a 30lb trailer hitch.

    I have no idea how to explain mercy killing to a child, or even if you should since they really don't understand. And how to explain that you needed to kill it in the first place escapes me too. Perhaps a live trap next time? Of course, I was once faced with a live, untrapped and RETARDEDLY ADORABLE field mouse once and I screamed like a little girl when it moved. The thing was made out of pure cute and I still screamed. What do you do? Touchy subject, this.


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