Mouse Remorse

Out, out damned spot!!!!! Oh...heh heh...sorry...

Well, there has been an "incident." An incident involving a grey mouse, a squeamish tenant, and an errant landlord. The usual cast of characters...

So, yesterday was an interesting day. Woke up and wandered out of my bedroom, innocently wending my way through various furniture to the bathroom. There it was...on the kitchen floor. Sitting in the middle, like a tiny grey island, The Mouse. I did not exactly freak out. I mean, I used to have rats as pets...but there's just something about a wild rodent that kind of gives me the heebie jeebies.

I assumed that if I moved it would bolt across the room...but then instead it sort of hobbled. Yes, hobbled. The blasted thing was obviously sick or mangled. This did not really amount to pity at this point...more a sense of ewwwwwwwwww....

The damn thing got under the stove before I could get it, which was actually fine at that point as I had nothing to "get it" with. I put several mousetraps, reminiscent of some sort of Warner Bros. cartoon, all around the space where the mouse would come out, and went and washed up--didn't want to be late for a meeting I was due to attend. When I came out, the traps were empty, so I was planning to pull out the stove and deal with things, when I saw it. No longer in the kitchen, it was now an island unto itself on my office rug. I grabbed a mixing bowl, and crept towards it. It sort of tried to move, but it seemed really damaged, and I'm positive that the cat downstairs, Hank, had actually been at it first. As I approached, it just sat there and I clamped the bowl on him.

I then proceeded to have the biggest case of the willies I have ever had!! I mean, this was an all-out, pre-teen-girl freak out! I was done...I just couldn't deal with this mouse. So, what's a girl to do?

Call her landlord of course. I had the rent cheque waiting, so it was like I was ordering a $600 hit. "Hi David, I have the rent and a mouse in a bowl. Want to come pick them up?" He said he'd be by, and as I had to go to my meeting and work, I placed a copy of Great American Folklore and a Norton's poetry anthology on top of the bowl and left.

Well, apparently the "mouse in a bowl" was not a super pressing issue in my landlords mind. He did not collect said mouse until several hours after I had left...so, when he got here, Mssr. Mouse (gender being assumed of course) was most definitely perished.

I have never felt so mean. Yes, it was a scurvy, sad, obviously damaged, disease-ridden pest, but if I would have just squished it with a boot, or tossed it's ass outside, it would have been better. Instead, I left it to die under a mixing bowl. On my tan rug. For who knows how long?

When I got home, the "body" was disposed of, but I can no longer stand to use the bowl, and have put so much foam carpet cleaner and disinfectant on my carpet that I'm a modern day Lady Macbeth. I still shudder to think of it.

And let's just say that friends...or should I say "friends"...do not help matters much. A certain person I shall name Heather...or perhaps Shelly to protect her identity...Shelly then said that I should be watching out for a tiny mouse apparition, trailing tiny chains "forged in life," warning me of my own impending doom.

When you're awake and rested during the day, kind of funny...but overtired, and in the wee sma's of the morning: ha ha, Hea..Shelly, ha ha.

Well, that's the tragedy. Stupid mouse.

Now, let's all bow our heads for a moment to remember the death of Mssr. Mouse...and to reset the traps!

Lady V.