Tale of a Bungled Mouse KIlling

Most people have heard the phrase, "Oh, he (or she) wouldn't hurt a mouse!" when describing a gentle soul. As of last Sunday, no one can say that about me anymore - if they ever did - because I hurt one.

I didn't mean to. I meant to kill it.

Just about every night for the past year or so mice have gathered under my kitchen sink to socialize and enjoy snacks. And on a number of occasions I have set mouse traps and succeeded in quickly and deftly eliminating a large number of them. I use the old fashioned type of trap that, when it works properly, which it does 99% of the time, instantly snaps their little necks. I feel these are more humane than the sticky traps that glue the mouse's feet to the trap where they languish perhaps for days on end until...ugh, I can't even think about it. It's bad enough when I find a trap several feet away from where I placed it, knowing that the mouse didn't die quite instantly. This happened once when I found signs of mice under the sink the day before our house sitter was coming to stay with the dog while we went on vacation. I set the trap in the morning and left her a note telling her that I had set a trap under the sink and apologized profusely that she would have to dispose of it once it was caught. Several days after we got back I noticed a pungent odor coming from under the sink. I moved aside the assorted household cleaners and there I found the remains of a valiant, albeit, dead, mouse that had survived the trap long enough to drag himself, trap and all, behind the Pine Sol. My sitter probably assumed I'd caught the mouse before I left.

But, extermination must go on. Again, after finding signs of mouse-partying under the sink last weekend I set another trap before going to bed. Next morning when I moved the trash can to see if I had caught one, the trap was gone. I continued moving bottles aside until I spied a small gray rodent peering back at me, quite alive. His tail appeared to be caught in the trap, but the rest of him was fine.

"Oh my God," I hollered to my husband, "it's still alive!"

I pulled the trash can out from under the sink and just as my husband entered the kitchen the mouse made a run for it, dashing past the trash can, scampering across the floor with the trap noisily clattering against the tile and barely grazing my husband's bare toes who danced like a cowboy in a western foot-shooting scene.

"Grab it!" I screamed, loud enough to wake the neighbors.

By this time the mouse had disappeared under the stove. We could hear the trap moving around.

My husband told me to get broom and a brick.

"You're not killing it with a brick!" I squealed.

"The brick is to put under the stove when I lift it up," he said. "I'm going to use the broom to sweep him out."

After we had the stove lifted and secured, I used a flashlight to locate the mouse who had situated itself directly under the resting rim of the stove.

"If you set the stove down right now," I whispered, as if I didn't want the mouse to hear me,"you would kill it."

We both grimaced at the thought of squishing the mouse to death and decided against it.

My husband took the broom and gently nudged the mouse, who suddenly took off from under the stove, ran towards the livingroom and then made a left turn and threw himself down the carpeted stairway. He made it one step. All the while I was screaming to my husband, "Throw the towel on him, throw the towel on him!" I don't know about you, but in the house I grew up in, anytime there was a problem, we used a towel. We used towels as potholders, towels to unplug things that were on fire, and towels to trap unwanted household rodents.

But the mouse was too fast for the towel.

After it lunged down the first step, my husband used the broomstick handle to hold the trap still, while the mouse thrashed around squeaking all kinds of mouse obscenities at us. I ran to the kitchen drawer and grabbed a pair of cooking tongs to pick up the trap with the dangling attached mouse. Upon closer examination, we noticed that it was the mouse's right hind leg that had gotten caught in the trap.

We carried the mouse out to the front yard with the chef tongs, wearing our pajamas. My husband put the trap on the ground and, again, held the trap still with the broom handle, while I bent down and, with the tongs, lifted the metal bar off the mouse's foot. Off he darted into the sunrise.

Several neighborhood cats looked on appreciatively.