Spoke too soon. I woke up this morning, and as I was tweeting my victory, I thought I heard something in the kitchen. That's right, there was a second shooter mouse.
Time for another burial at sea.
This one was stuck in the sticky trap under the fridge. It was an even sadder sight than the night before because he was also still alive but was lying on his side with his head resting on the peanut-butter-covered oatmeal square bait like it was a pillow. Can't talk about it anymore.
Carolyn, once again, I'll replace your Tupperware containers.
Let's hope this is the last casualty. This time the disposal involved less tears - I've been hardened by war.
The mouse is dead. Before I could even post my "help us name the mouse" poll. Name candidates included The Earl of Snackington, Herman Muenster (spelling intentional), William Jennings Bryan (three-time candidate for President and opponent of the gold standard.. how fun would it be to say things like "William Jennings Bryan chewed a hole in the Triscuit box" or "I just saw William Jennings Bryan behind the fridge"), and Heisenberg. I'm post-humously naming him Heisenberg. Respect.
I walked home tonight after getting dinner with my cousin Katie. I called my parents to chat as I made my way home. I was still on the phone with my mom when I walked into my apartment, and immediately saw the trap that had made its way a foot and a half out from under the kitchen counter. Stuck to it was Heisenberg himself.
Not. Dead. Yet.
Heisenberg, ya dead? No, man.
After some incoherent squealing coupled with the poor cell reception in my apartment, my mom insisted I slow down and tell her what was happening. I told her the mouse was caught in one of the sticky traps but wasn't dead. The lower half of his body was caught in the trap but he was using his face and/or hands to scoot his way forward. He was sporadically flailing his head about as I talked my way through this which only led me to question how long it had taken him to move a foot and a half. How long had I been torturing this furry little creature? Suddenly, I was no longer out for blood, determined to eliminate this pest that had settled in my apartment without an invitation. Maybe it was because I had a long conversation with my co-workers today about the death of our family pets. Maybe it was because he seemed a lot smaller and cartoonish up close. Maybe it was because he didn't even get to eat any of the peanut butter out of the trap. But suddenly I felt very sorry for the mouse. And suddenly I was crying. Like really really crying.
I shall remember you as the adorable mouse that you never were.
My mom put me on the phone with my dad who proceeded to talk me through the rest of this situation. (Sidenote: Carolyn, hope you're having fun at Bonaroo. This weekend has been eventful. We'll catch up over some Seamless web in a few days.) Dad was not really having any of this crying business, so he told me my best option was to.. wait for it.. drown the mouse in the toilet.
Hang on a second..
Yes, I heard that right. Drown the mouse. In the toilet. That seems like it would calm my nerves, right? How am I supposed to get the trap out of the toilet then? What if the mouse comes out of the sticky trap in the toilet and then I have to pick up the DEAD, TOILET-WATER-SOAKED MOUSE out of the toilet WITH MY BARE HANDS?
Dad: Ok, do you have any other traps? Yes, obviously I have 9 of them. Ok, take one of those and put it on top of the mouse and then put the whole thing in a bag and take it out to the trash.
Somehow this mouse trap sandwich idea seemed a little undignified. Can't explain it, but it wasn't sitting right with me. I asked my dad if maybe I could put some of the mouse poison pellets in front of Heisenberg so that he could inch his way toward them, eat them, and then die in his sleep. That idea was.. well.. we'll say it was "scoffed at." Back to the drowning plan...
I took a tall piece of Tupperware (sorry, Carolyn. I'll replace it before you get home) and filled it with water. Bear in mind, my dad was on the phone with me for this whole process. Bear in mind, the mouse was still squirming around during this whole process. Simply horrifying. Nevermind the fact that as I was narrating this, my dad said, "Of course he's moving around, he's fighting for his life." Oh my GOD, not helping. Now I had to work up the nerve to pick up the trap, with the live mouse still wriggling around on it, and stick it in the Tupperware container.
It was one thing to set a shitload of traps in the hopes of "catching" the mouse. I knew catching the mouse meant killing it but, you know, out of sight, out of mind. Now I wasn't just catching the apartment mouse anymore. I was putting Heisenberg to death. There's an episode of The West Wing that deals with the morality of capital punishment. I don't remember the exact crime committed but there is a man who is on death row who is about to be executed and there is a chance the President might spare his life. Whatever the crime was, it is clear that is was something really horrible but even as basically everyone is agreeing that he should be put to death, C.J. Cregg, the Press Secretary, says, "I just wish I didn't know his mother's name, that's all." Well, I wish I hadn't looked Heisenberg in the eyes or known he likes peanut butter or mentally associated him with those dogs with wheels instead of hind legs.
BRB, just have to go drown this adorable, handicapped puppy in my toilet.
I was very upset at this point and told my dad how small Heisenberg was. "Yeah, of course he's small. There's millions of them. You want them to give you diseases?" This was said in the you-know-who-else-cut-corners?-Janis-Joplin Mr. Weir tone. Amazing.
His best line, however, was when he was trying to convince me that the most humane thing to do would be to drown Heisenberg:
"Remember how the people died on the Titanic? It's a peaceful way to go."
I could hear my mom laughing from the other room.
Anyway, shaking and wincing and crying my way through it, I picked up the mouse trap and quickly lowered Heisenberg, head first, into the water-filled Tupperware container. It all went so fast. My parents simultaneously launched into rapid-fire questioning:
Do you have the lid on it?
Do you have a plastic bag to put it in?
Is the lid on yet?
Do you have your keys?
Are you headed downstairs to the garbage?
Do you have your keys?
Is he dead?
Ugh, yes, I just looked him in the eyes.
Why did you look him in the eyes??
I KILLED HIM. I HAVE TO LOOK HIM IN THE EYES.
Is he dead?
Yes. His eyes were definitely dead.
Dad: This is a big step for you. I'm proud.
Post-humous texts from my parents include the following:
Texts from Mom:
Text 1: Glad the mouse hunt is over. Good job!
Text 2: Mariel caught the mouse and got rid of him... She's somewhat traumatized.
Text 3: I meant to send to Nick and sent to you ;)
Text 4: Hope you got a glass of wine! I did!
Texts from Dad:
In conclusion, here is my dedication to Heisenberg. Hope you're eating peanut butter in a better place now.
I thought this was going to be a 24-hour-turnaround kind of deal but apparently that is not the case. Good to know. Glad I brought home dinner just in case. I kid, I kid. All joking aside, as gross/psychopathic as this sounds, I was 30% excited about finding a body. Not in an I-can't-wait-to-perform-experiments-on-it kind of way. I was just looking forward to the sense of accomplishment I would feel having brought the intruder to justice. But alas, the suspect remains at large.
See you in hell.
Expecting to have caught the little varmint by this evening, I brought home a couple of items from work to aid me in disposing of the body: latex gloves and chopsticks. And no, I don't work at a P.F. Changs. I used the chopsticks to slide the sticky mouse traps out from under the oven. The gloves were obviously to protect myself from mouse diseases in case I'd been successful. I added peanut butter to one of the sticky traps since both my mom and Mark Lyons told me peanut butter is the way to go. And now.. we wait.
I would like to include an email I received from Wrecking Crew member Greg in response to Mouse Hunt: Part I. Thanks for sharing, Greg. This little monster sounds like a pro. Rest assured, one day you'll get him on tax evasion.
Here’s some advice. MOVE! That might sound like an exaggeration… but not if you were like us, and happened to have the smartest lil bastard of a mouse ever to squeak in this fine city. While Ben viciously hunted and killed many of his brethren – super mouse just came and went as he pleased. [ed. note: Ben was Greg's roommate apparently and was cc'ed on this email. Ben, nice to meet you. I'm still waiting for your reply-all but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. Welcome to the Wrecking Crew]
Examples?
·He ate the peanut butter out of the mouse trap we set and then left us a turd on top of the trap - just to send us a message. [ed. note: my first LOL of this email. I like where this is headed]
·He ate the cheese out of Ben’s ‘orange cracker and cheese with red spreading stick’ snack pack – but just left the crackers! (why does a grown man still have cheese and cracker snack packs? That question is for another day – this is about the mouse)
·He made a shoe-nest out of my fly ass pair high top Nike dunks
·We cornered him in the garbage can dozens of times – smashing the can and its contents to bits – only to investigate the bag and find no mouse remains.
·Ben once caught him in his Burton back pack eating some potato chips. He quickly hustled the bag outside to find not a mouse, but a little hole nibble in the corner of the bag where the super mouse ejected to safety in the nick of time.
His favorite food was sour cream n onion potato chips. Ironically that’s Ben’s favorite food too – so you can imagine the epic rivalry created and ensuing battle. How did it all end? How did you finally defeat super mouse and his reign of terror? Ben and I surrendered and moved out of the apartment. I can only speculate that super mouse is still living on N7th and Bedford – doing whatever the f*** he wants to do.
Only cute when voiced by Michael J. Fox and/or holding tiny teddy bears
I was standing in my bedroom (the only place I get consistent cell reception in my apartment) chatting with my mother on the phone this evening when I spied with my little eye something grey scurrying across our kitchen floor and running under the oven. Mouse in the hizzouse, ladies and gentlemen.
I don't consider myself a stereotypical girl when it comes to most things. I don't know how to walk in heels (I look like a baby deer standing for the first time). I don't enjoy shopping. Etc. This mouse, though. I freaked out a little bit.
Dealing with a mouse seems like one of those things that comes with growing up. You have your first apartment, you're paying rent, you're dealing with leaky bathroom ceilings... and you have to figure out how to kill your first mouse. Fortunately, I have my wonderful mother who knows everything about everything and tells me what to do in all of these first-time situations. So after I screamed and asked her who I call to kill the mouse, she assured me that this is something I can handle myself. Oh right, mouse traps. I don't know why my first instinct was that I had to call an exterminator. Probably because 0% of me wanted to walk past the oven to get to the front door. WHY DOES HE KEEP POKING HIS HEAD OUT TO LOOK AT ME? WHAT IS YOUR ANGLE, MOUSE? DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT EATING MY FACE.
When I told her that I didn't know where any hardware stores were around my neighborhood, my mom assured me that I could find what I needed at the grocery store or a Duane Reade. She spent a few more minutes calming me down and then asked me how close the nearest drug store was.
Me: Oh, I'm already there.
Mom: [laughing] That was fast. Did you run there?
Me: I've got my reasons.
Mom: Alright, did you find the mouse traps?
Me: No, I got distracted by some scented candles.
Pound cake scented candles. I've got my reasons.
Still on the phone with my mom (and candle in tow), I find a Rite Aid employee and ask the mustachioed woman where the mouse traps are.
Mustachioed Rite Aid lady: [quizzical look]
Me: Mouse traps.
Mustachioed Rite Aid lady: [still looking quizzical, still mustachioed] Mouse traps?
Me: Yes. Traps. For catching mice.
Mustachioed Rite Aid lady: Oh, sure [points to aisle 14]
Mom: Seriously?
Me: Yes, I just explained to a grown woman what a mouse trap is.
I sorted through their selection but there were no sticky mouse traps which is what my mom was telling me to buy. My poor mother was still on the phone with me, the saint that she is, as I talked through my options. Ok, not getting the old school wooden snappy things. I was trying to explain this one big trap that seemed pretty sturdy..
Me: Ok, there's this one.. I can't tell how it works. It looks like the mouse walks in and then the door closes behind it. But I think that means the mouse is going just hang out in there? Alive? I can't tell what this is.
Mom: [pause] It sounds like you're describing a mouse hotel.
Anyway, after much deliberation I bought the mouse hotel and mouse poison pellets to go with it. That's right, mouse. You can check out anytime you like but you can never leave.
$18.26 later, I walked a couple blocks further to the Duane Reade. Surely they must have sticky mouse traps and employees that know what mouse traps are. Nope, no sticky mouse traps. I decided to buy a set of 4 Tomcat traps (mini hotels) for good measure and, a set of two Rid Rite pest control systems. You plug these bad boys into your wall outlets, and they send out ultrasonic signals through the walls so mice won't want to come inside. Let's end the bloodshed here, my furry brethren.
$34.82 ($53.08 total), I headed home. Eh, I was passing the grocery store anyway.. might as well take a look inside. Yup, sticky mouse traps. Bingo. And it was only $2.17 for the CatchMaster set of 4!!
Here is a little preview of what my next post is going to be about.. You'll have to wait until Sunday night but just prep your brain for this one:
I have always imagined Greyhound buses as being frequented by meth addicts. And I can only
imagine how much meth addicts love Slurpees. So actually, this makes a lot of sense. #BizznassSmarts
After making sure my tetanus shot is up-to-date, I'm boarding the Greyhound to go see my brother run the 10K at the Atlantic 10 Conference Meet in Amherst, Mass. this weekend. With my dad. That's right.. I'm taking a Greyhound. And spending 36 hours with my dad. See you on the other side.
Inappropriately Enthusiastically cuddling with a dog named Levi which probably had alopecia (#mostlikelytohavebadfur) on the roof of our apartment building
