Ever since I moved into this building, there’s always been a mouse or two. Usually, they show up in the Fall, when the weather turns cold.
The ritual has been the same for years. First I catch a glimpse of the mouse, scurrying around a corner, then I get out the trusty trap, bait it with a hunk of sharp cheddar, and set it by the old mousin’ hole in the corner of the kitchen. Next morning, or maybe the morning after, there’s Mr. Mouse in the trap, and soon he’s in the trash. The End. And maybe another of his buddies stops by later in the Winter, but that’s quickly resolved, too.
So, in mid-September, when I spotted a mouse scurrying under the refrigerator, I acted out my half of the ritual. Next morning, the mouse was dead in the trap, and I proclaimed my supremacy to no one in particular.
“Gotcha, ya little bastard!”
And that should have been the end of that. Except I noticed that even though I had a dead mouse, all the bait was gone from the trap. I reset it, just to be sure.
That evening, I dutifully reported the highlight of my day to my little circle of e-friends, under the subject header “One less mouse bastard”. As often happens in that group, someone took a fancy to the phrase, and in the subsequent discussion of the cosmic importance of this event, somehow the mice became MouseBastards(tm).
Next morning, there was another dead mouse in the trap, and I reset it, only to find another victim when I came home from work that evening. These events, too, I reported to my friends.
The next morning, another mouse, and another when I came home for lunch, and then later, just after I’d gone to bed, I heard that satisfying SNAP! from the kitchen. It seemed the place was swarming with mouse bastards.
I’d never really taken the mouse threat seriously before. It had always seemed more of a game. I mean, I knew where the mice were getting in, though a crack in the mortar in the wall behind the radiator in the kitchen, but I’d never really considered plugging it up before. The mice had always been good enough to limit their visits in prior years. Why the sudden invasion? Why weren’t they playing fair and living up to their side of tha bargain? I decided two could play that game, and resolved to keep the trap permanently set.
And nightly, I chronicled the War Against the MouseBastards(tm) to my friends.
They had plenty of helpful suggestions. Steel wool stuffed down the hole. Mouse poison. More than one trap. Caulking up the hole in the mortar. I’d never really considered anything more than my single trusty trap, but slowly a strategy for a wider war against the mice started taking shape in my mind. All it would require would be one trip to the hardware store …
Then Indian Summer came, warm and sunny, and suddenly the mouse visitors disappeared. Days went go by with no victims in the trap. Maybe that would be it for the year. The trip to the hardware store was put off for another day. Then another. Then next week. And in the evenings, while one friend recounted the daily events of a reorganization at his company, and another the trials and tribulations of getting her new house furnished, and a third the latest events surrounding an Internet stalker harassing him, I had nothing to write about. I had no unusual events in my life.
In early October the weather turned cold again, and one morning I found a mouse in the trap. That evening another. And later that evening, while sitting at the computer, I saw one scurry around the corner from the dining room and into the kitchen. The War was back on.
Only this time it was worse. The mice were more aggressive, and more fearless. They didn’t wait for nighttime anymore. One morning I had just checked the trap prior to leaving for work, and as I opened the door to leave – SNAP! Two times, while sitting at the computer typing, SNAP! Such occurrences were actually more personally satisfying, because the little bastards were beginning to piss me off, and when they were stupid enough to get caught when I was around, I got to hear them squeaking in pain from the trap, until I went out and gave them a smack with the mop handle. Little bastards.
I quit counting at twenty, and began thinking more and more about that trip to the hardware store.
One evening a couple of weeks ago the landlady stopped by to take a look at some painting that needed to be done. When she finished assessing the job, she asked if everything else was okay.
“Okay”, I answered, “If you don’t count the war against the mice.”
She looked annoyed. “Richard across the hall has been having trouble with them too”, she told me. “I put some poison down in the basement. We’ll see if that does anything.”
And apparently it did. Suddenly there were no more mice.
I imagined the basement littered with little poisoned mouse carcasses. I reveled in the thought. I thought about going down there for a look. But of course I never did.
On election day evening, Richard and I walked over to the neighborhood polling place, and swapped mouse stories. He’d had three traps going, and caught seventeen. Neither of us had seen a mouse since the landlady laid out the poison. Both of us hoped it was over.
Yesterday when I came home, I found the trap sprung. No carcass satisfyingly twisted and frozen into a grotesque mouse death statue, but I knew a MouseBastard(tm) was afoot.
This morning, while reclining on the couch, out of the corner of my eye I caught some motion under the aquarium. Turning to watch, I espied a mouse bastard, leisurely going about his work.
When I got up off the couch, he headed back out to the kitchen, in no particular hurry, not worried in the least. I decided to try something I’ve been thinking all along.
Quietly opening my desk drawer, I withdrew my pellet gun, popped in a pellet, and pumped the thing up like 15 times. Enough to blast a hole completely through a mature Arizona grapefuit. Slooooowly I inched my way into the kitchen in pursuit of the wily mouse, pellet gun at the ready.
But the little bastard had disappeared. I shot a hole in a cardboard box instead. A nice, perfect, round little hole, that would have looked much better in that mouse bastard’s brains.
This afternoon I made the long procrastinated trip to the hardware store. I’m now equipped with about $27 worth of anti-mouse armaments.
It’s time for TotalWar(tm) against the mouse bastards.
I’m goin’ in.
Author/Copyright: Tiger, of tigerwhip.com fame Date written: 11/10/1996