Me and a Cinderblock
I'm going to hell. Oh, OK, I don't really believe in hell, but if there was a hell I'd have a seat reserved for me.
I killed a mouse last night. Not the passive way, by catching it in a snap trap. I caught it on a baited sticky trap, which is probably listed as a method of torture by the Geneva Convention. The tiny little mouse was stretched out on the trap, alongside the crushed walnut I had baited the thing with, and only able to move his little head, and of course his chest cavity, showing his alarm at his predicament and my presence by breathing heavily while staring at me with wide eyes, silently begging me for mercy. And I granted that mercy, in the form of a quick death via dropped cinderblock. Then I proceeded drink an entire bottle of wine.
I should back up a bit. I've been battling mice in my house for over a month. I wouldn't even mind their presence if they could just keep their tiny little poops off my counters, and off my desk, and off my stove top. I almost never saw the little buggers. (Except for one night when I was up late watching the playoffs and this nervy little city mouse darted out from underneath the couch where I sat and shot across the living room and underneath the TV cart. I am pretty sure I heard him snicker while he did this too.) It was the droppings that caused me to escalate my efforts at rodent eradication.
I started with the cute little humane traps, baited with bits of cheese, then bread, then peanut butter. Nothing. Why would a mouse bother to enter a little grey plastic box to eat when there apparently plenty of crumbs in my subfloor to live on for years to come?
The weekend I put out the humane traps I also went through two cans of Great Stuff (and it truly is) expandable foam, sealing all the gaps around any hot-water-heating pipe in my home. Still, the mice managed to get into my kitchen, though I did manage to keep them out of the top floor where the bedrooms are. Which is nice, as I find it difficult to sleep when I can hear a mouse scratching around in a corner of my room.
So, these city mice were proving to be quite the challenge. No longer feeling quite so tender-hearted, I turned to poison, admittedly a cowardly move on my part. However, these are smart city mice and they ignored my little (decidedly unappetizing-looking) green blocks o'poison. My mood turned blacker and out came the sticky traps. I placed them in all the places where I had found droppings, and waited. And waited. Such smart little mousies - ignoring all my efforts while still moving freely about my home.
Finally, this past weekend, I went to snap traps. I hate snap traps. They're a bitch to set, and they sound nasty when tripped. But honestly, after my sticky traps experiences, I am now a snap trap convert, especially now that a covered snap trap is available for purchase, thus sparing me, the executioner, from having to view the ex-mouse's remains post-snap.
A little mouse now haunts my dreams. I am trying to convince myself that, in line with my personally-held belief in reincarnation, the mouse has moved on to a better existence in the world, perhaps as cute little puppy, or a eaglet. But I can't forget the look of pain and panic in the mouse's eyes as I put the trap in a plastic grocery bag prior to dropping the cinderblock on him. Those mouse eyes are going to haunt me for a good long while.