October 15 - A promise made

“Eek!”

I was alarmed to find that, given my first occasion, the sound I produced upon finding a mouse was exactly that from the comic books. I wish I could say I had gasped an “Ooh!” or let out a “God damn!” but no; the reality is that, the human being, when suddenly confronted with a scampering mouse, let’s out a solid: “Eek!”

I wasn’t even afraid of rodents, you understand, that was what galled most about being reduced to girlish shrieks.

“Jeff,” I said into the phone, instantly dialing my boyfriend. I was standing safely atop one of my kitchen stools for safety, then remembered that I wasn’t afraid of mice and sheepishly descended, glad Jeff hadn’t seen.

“What? What’s wrong?” he asked, concerned, no doubt picturing house fires, robbery, the loss of a favorite earring.

“There is a mouse in my house.”

“Uh oh.”

“Uh oh?” That was his sage advice? “I’ve never had a mouse before. What do I do?”

I heard him sigh. “You’re going to have to get a trap,” he explained.

“A…” My voice faltered. “Trap? You mean kill it?”

Reader, remember, I like mice! Think they’re cute even. One of my best friends in childhood once got two pet mice, small cell-phone sized things with pink noses and long fuzzy whiskers. The pet store assured her and her mother that they had received two males so there was no chance of reproduction. A week later, there was a litter of bald, blind mice in the corner of the cage.

“Remember the mouse I named Fred?” my best friend asked, taking me up the stairs to her room.

I nodded remembrance.

“He was a she.”

“Ooh.” (I could make the sound, back then). Transvestite mice, I thought.

“You mean kill it?” I repeated now, staring wildly into the corners of my studio apartment. I didn’t see a space that looked large enough for a chubby mouse (and this one had been a porker) to squeeze through, but then, I had read that rodent bones could nearly flatten. I shivered.

“It’s the only way to get rid of them,” Jeff explained sadly, knowing my predicament. “Then call your landlord on Monday. He should be dealing with this. But for the weekend? Traps.”

Traps. I clicked off my cell phone and sat and stared at the wall, listening for the sound of scampering or the sniffling of a rodent nose. Any flash of movement – a shadow across the floor, a pigeon outside the window, made me give a start, utter another low cry. I tucked my feet up, not wanting little mouse paws scampering across me.

But I couldn’t, simply couldn’t get a trap.

You see, I was vegan. I didn’t eat animals. I didn’t kill animals. How could I kill a mouse?

I walked glumly to the hardware store. Normally, I am a purposeful walker, but this time, the clip clop of my heels was decidedly dreary.

“Hello,” I said as brightly as possible to the man behind the desk. “What’s the most humane way you have to get rid of mice?” I envisioned a spray, perhaps petal-scented, that mice were averse to. One of those machines that emitted a high pitched noise beyond the range of the human ear. A magic dust I could sprinkle around the edges of the studio that would make a mouse sneeze and say, “Better find cheese elsewhere…”

“Humane?” coughed the man. He pointed. “There are traps around the corner, there.”

“Right,” I said sheepishly. I rounded the corner and saw hideous cartoons of squished mice with their tongues sticking out. Mouse be gone! No more rodents! Instant death! they proclaimed cheerfully. I shuddered.

After about fifteen minutes of reading labels and disposal of body instructions, I selected the trap with a cover so I would never have to see the dead carcass. Out of sight out of mind. If I never technically knew I had killed the mouse, perhaps it would count as not having down so…

“Just this,” I said, unable to make eye contact with the salesman as I laid my instrument of death up on his counter. I was sure he was smirking.

I opened my door cautiously, waiting for that flash of a tail to enter my vision, to hear the scurrying footsteps.

“You’re not afraid of mice,” I reminded myself, entering the rest of the way and flicking on the lamps. No mouse in sight. Sure; I wasn’t afraid, but that didn’t mean I wanted it in here with me. Fred the mouse and his partner Tommy had been cute when they were caged in a childhood bedroom. It was another thing to know an errant mouse was eating your Power Bars.

I sighed, read the instructions on the trap again.

Insert bait – cheese or peanut butter – into opening.

I had no cheese. I was vegan, remember? Peanut butter it would have to be. I wondered if rodents liked the organic, all-natural kind.

I liberally smeared the peanut butter into the trap, then turned it so it clicked in my hand, and instantly gave a small yelp. It felt like holding a live bomb.

Cautiously, I placed the trap down by the wall, near where the mouse had seemed to disappear directly into the flooring. Heaving a sigh – it was out of my hands – I sat cautiously at my computer. And froze. I heard the scurrying footsteps. Heard a sniff sniff sniff. My body tensed and I winced, waiting for the jaws of death.

Don’t go in there! I wanted to cry. I sat, the blood drained from my face, listening to the animal contemplate its own death. I was poised, ready to give a shuddering shake if I heard the machine clamp down about the animal. Would it squeal? Scream? Shriek?

I jumped to my feet, grabbed a coat, and hurried from the apartment. I couldn’t be a witness to death.

“I need a glass of wine,” I choked out to the bartender at the bar downstairs. Unfiltered wine, reader. This was a good, all-organic restaurant of which I speak, with unfiltered vegan wines.

Two hours later – that had to be enough time for death to work its magic – I tiptoed back up the stairs. I slowly flicked on the lights. I bent my head down over the trap, waiting to smell a stench of decay, to see a twitching rodent paw.

The indicator on the trap was still marked at “Set” not at “Mouse Caught.” It hadn’t fallen for the bait!

I stifled a surge of indignation. What had gone wrong in my hunting? Why wasn’t I successful?

For the next three days, the tension grew. Every time I came home, I eagerly trotted over to the trap, horrified at my own anticipation, a gnawing sense of glee at what I might find, and then, feeling the leaden sinking in my belly when I saw the trap was still just “Set”, the keen taste of disappointment. I was sick of jumping at ever y noise, of moving my Power Bars to a different cabinet every few hours in an attempt to foil any mouse-y visitors, sick of wearing shoes around the house so no mouse could dart across my bare toes. I wanted a catch! I wanted success! I stopped recalling that this was murder, and started feeling antsy.

I ate my vegan dinner those nights seasoned with the thick taste of hypocrisy.

On the fourth day, the mouse had become unreal. I had seen neither hair nor whisker of the thing since that first “Eek!” and hoped he had moved on to cheesier quarters. Out of habit now, I tiptoed up the last flight of stairs, lest it was near the trap and my steps would alert him, and I opened the door as silently as I could. I leaned down low over the trap, not expecting much anymore, and my breath caught in my throat.

“Mouse caught” the indicator told me.

“Jeff!” I shrieked into the phone. “I killed it. It’s dead. What have I done?”

Jeff shushed me and immediately came for mouse disposal. After, the trap out of sight, the dead body buried in the garbage can on the curb (I said a prayer for its soul), Jeff and I sat drinking vegan wine at the bar downstairs.

“You know,” I said. “I have a guilty confession.”

“What’s that,” Jeff asked, the incident already forgotten. He hated mice.

“When I saw that I had caught the mouse, I had this moment of… satisfaction.” I choked on the word. I had envisioned myself as a hunter, almost comprehending the thrill of the chase, the ecstasy of capture, the adrenaline pumping and the lure of the power of I had to inflict death. I shuddered. “Does that make me a bad vegan?”

Jeff roared with laughter. When he finally managed to catch his breath, wiping tears from his eyes, he patted my hand gently. “I promise,” he said. “It doesn’t.”