Meeces
Today I poddled into my kitchen, and there was a very big mouse on the floor. At least I hope it was a mouse. How big do they have to be before you suspect rattiness? It was about 4-5 inches plus the same again in tail.
Retrospectively, ellistar informs me that he would have said "oh bugger, we've got mice again", and once it had peacefully walked away he would have broken out the traps and poison.
What do I do? I stand stock still in the middle of the kitchen, ignored by the cockiest mouse I've ever encountered, and look around for a weapon. My gaze falls first on the biggest sharpest knife I own, handily lying on the unit from boning lamb earlier; I decide that sticking it through the body of the mouse may be beyond my talents and/or willpower. Instead I pick up a very large frying pan off the stove and carefully bend down. The mouse continues to treat me as a creature of no account. I wallop it squarely with the pan; it squeaks and falls on its side. "Stunned" I think. Excellent. It then gets up and sets off across the floor, so I wallop it again. It limps behind the washing machine where I can't get to it. Bastard.
ellistar rushes into the kitchen , clearly thinking that I have broken things (again), and I tell him of my battle. For the next hour I repeatedly catch him looking at me with the expression of a man who has just realised that his woman has the axe-murderer gene. Apparently my behaviour is not "normal". It seemed normal to me. One of my early childhood memories is of being woken in the night by my mother and grandma chasing a mouse round my bedroom. My grandma was wielding a hammer.
Am I meant to feel worse about trying to beat it to death than about poisoning it or breaking its back in a trap? I'm afraid I can't see the fine distinction.
Retrospectively, ellistar informs me that he would have said "oh bugger, we've got mice again", and once it had peacefully walked away he would have broken out the traps and poison.
What do I do? I stand stock still in the middle of the kitchen, ignored by the cockiest mouse I've ever encountered, and look around for a weapon. My gaze falls first on the biggest sharpest knife I own, handily lying on the unit from boning lamb earlier; I decide that sticking it through the body of the mouse may be beyond my talents and/or willpower. Instead I pick up a very large frying pan off the stove and carefully bend down. The mouse continues to treat me as a creature of no account. I wallop it squarely with the pan; it squeaks and falls on its side. "Stunned" I think. Excellent. It then gets up and sets off across the floor, so I wallop it again. It limps behind the washing machine where I can't get to it. Bastard.
ellistar rushes into the kitchen , clearly thinking that I have broken things (again), and I tell him of my battle. For the next hour I repeatedly catch him looking at me with the expression of a man who has just realised that his woman has the axe-murderer gene. Apparently my behaviour is not "normal". It seemed normal to me. One of my early childhood memories is of being woken in the night by my mother and grandma chasing a mouse round my bedroom. My grandma was wielding a hammer.
Am I meant to feel worse about trying to beat it to death than about poisoning it or breaking its back in a trap? I'm afraid I can't see the fine distinction.