A few weeks later, I reach into the pantry again to pull out a bag of mixed nuts and cranberries. "Hmm" I thought, "There's a hole at the bottom of this bag, too". Only, as I further investigated the crime scene where the bag lay I found that somehow, only the cranberries had made their way out of the bag. I thought, "Very curious...". I threw the bag and cranberries away. As I returned to the scene I found that a tiny hole had been chewed through the wicker basket which contained the nuts and former seeds. I briefly considered the possibility of a mouse, but then quickly switched the lever in my brain from "Logic" to "Denial".
When I was young we lived in an old house in Red Bluff. One day I opened the cupboard door to the pots and pans and saw something move quickly into the corner. Being the inquisitive child that I was I grabbed a flashlight and peered into the darkness. Back in the corner, was a family of mice. I remember shouting excitedly, "Moooom! We have miiiice!" Plotting how I was going to catch, keep, feed and love them forever. They were so cute...white with spots of brown. They were the kind your friends kept as pets in cages, the kind that you would hold and chase your friends with, or make your mom shreek, "Eeew honey, get that away from me!"
When it was delicately explained to me that these were not the type of mice one would keep because of well, all the reasons parents don't want their kids to keep mice, especially not ones bought at the pet store, I was crushed. So you see, it is VERY important to me that I do not develop any type of empathy toward the "denial" mouse that was possibly eating my bag of mixed nuts (apparently does not have developed taste for cranberries).
That night I told my loving husband, "I think we have a mouse" (emphasis on "Think"). A little background on Colter: born in Montana to mountain men (no joke) who ate only the venison they harvested, made beaded mokasins and drums, and lived in a log home, Colter does not fear critters of any kind. True to his name, look up "John Colter, mountain man" and you will know a lot about my guy. Anyway, when Colter was little his parents became dorm parents to kids at international schools, taking Colter with them to Irian Jaya, Malasia, Thailand, New Guinea, and the Philippines. They did not have screens on their windows. They sometimes ate "Balut", a partially developed duck egg fermented in the ground. "What?" he says casually, "It was a delicacy". Colter once woke up in the middle of the night covered with crawling spiders only to sit up, brush them off, and roll over onto his other side and finish his sleep.
"A mouse, huh?" and that basically ended the conversation for a few days until Colter went into the kitchen before bed for a snack, turned on the light and SAW the mouse duck behind a can of crushed pineapple. He came back into the living room and said to me, "Babe, I think I saw the mouse." This of course, was followed by me complaining and trying to figure out what we were going to do about this situation (basically, me telling Colter about how important it is to me that we have a mouse-free home and that this was intollerable). I was appalled and nervous, maybe just because I didn't want to develop empathy for it. I told our neighbours, who sensitively informed me that when you live in a house built in 1900 you are likely to have mice, especially when it is cold outside.
We discussed with friends and experienced mousers a humane trap to purchase. We settled on the snap trap, as we figured we would make its death quick so it didn't have to struggle. We set up a trap in the pantry, placing peanut butter at the end and I kid you not, for almost a WEEK this mouse figured out how lick off the peanut butter without setting off the trap. Like a dummy every evening I asked Colter to put more peanut butter on the trap, because surely, we would get it this time. Great, so we have a mouse, and I'm feeding it like a pet-it's fat and happy, and my entire pantry has made it's way onto a card table in the center of our kitchen. Score? Me-0 Mouse-2. Not only has this mouse figured out how to get off the peanut butter, but you have to understand, I don't know how it got onto the pantry shelves at all. They don't start until about 3 feet from the floor, and there is at least 1 1/2 feet between each shelf. There's nothing from which it could jump or climb onto the shelves, and it's made it to all three. Only logical explanation: it must be flying.
This is no ordinary mouse.
THEN, while watching the debate btw. Senator Joe Biden and Gov. Palin the mouse had the audacity to waltz through my living room. I said out loud, "You have got to be joking me." Mouse is fat, happy, comfortable, I am unhappy, uncomfortable, and my pantry is still on a card table. Score: me-0 mouse-3. The worst part: it was cute. So I kept reminding myself about how awful, yucky, diseased city mice are. I reminded myself why my mom didn't want me to keep the mice when I was little, and how if we were parents, I sure as hell would not let our kid keep the mouse. "No empathy" became my mantra toward the mouse.
It was time for a more serious approach. I couldn't support this relationship any more. This meant war. We borrowed our friend's cat and also bought crazy spinning and fail-safe snap traps and set them throughout the house. We managed to kill it but you know what? The freaking mouse keeps resurrecting. We've killed it FOUR times but it keeps coming back for more. If cats have 9 lives, how many lives do mice carry?
Until today, I have never considered getting a cat for any other reason besides having a warm, cuddly, purring, furry companion. But today, as the weather creeps below 60 and into the 40's next week, I just might have to take a trip to the pound.
