Mouse jamboree

Given all the mouse-related Google searches that lead random Internet wanderers here ("mouse+feces+photo" and "mouse+crushed+by+woman+high+heel" are typical), you would think I'd devote more time to writing about this blog's namesake. So here's one stab at it -- though not, sorry, with a sexy stilletto.

As of tonight, my total mouse body count to date is six. Not atypical for a New York City tenement, and not bad for a three-year-plus time span, but unsettling nonetheless, especially when I think of all their luckier relatives.

Thanks to the trusty D-Con Ultra-Set Covered Snap Trap loaded with peanut butter and parmesan (which remains, in my vast experience, the only extermination method that really works), I just came home to another victim. This saddens me, it creeps me out, it makes me feel guilty and icky and angry at the universe all at once. I'm sure there's a German word for this.

I hate having to kill the little guys. I'm not unsympathetic to their cause. While a glimpse of one scurrying across my floor sends me into barely-contained hysterics, I'm enough of an animal lover to recognize a certain charm in these clever little creatures, disease vectors though they may be. And it's just awful to see a dead mammal of any sort, let alone to be the agent of dispatch.

Leading a sheltered and fortunate life, I guess, I spent a solid three decades never seeing an expired mammal in any form other than road kill. I haven't even been to a funeral. This all changed a few years ago, when I stroked the soft grey fur of my faithful kitty companion on a veterinarian's table in Carrboro, NC. Aside from the emotional horror of losing someone I loved so dearly, there was a shock totally new to me, seeing a body at one moment quick with life, and the next stiff and drained of energy. You can read and hear about it most of your life, but there’s no way to prepare for what this is like. It seems magical, this transformation -- one minute she was there, and the next, well, as the vet put it, "she's gone." And she really was -- just suddenly there/not there in a way that transcended the physical.

But I didn't mean to get all metaphysically gloomy on you; this is a blog, for goodness' sake. The reason I bring this up is that upon my return from that terrible vet visit down South, I came home to find the stiff tail of my first mouse victim sticking out of the D-Con Covered Trap I'd set before I left. This was after I'd abandoned all hope for any sort of “humane” trap; those just hadn't attracted the visitors I knew were roaming my kitchen. But I don't think I'd really expected this murderous trap to work, either; I was just going through the motions, as I was with most everything during that sad time.

Anyway, the tail. I couldn't help noticing that its silvery color was not dissimilar to that of my departed friend's fur. And the stiffness of it, the horror of death, the unfairness of it all -- it was all too much. Working up the courage to deal with the unpleasant disposal, I steeled myself by thinking of my Lithuanian great-grandmother, who fled her village to travel, alone, to Boston (via Amsterdam, via a German prison) at age 13, and who found her beloved husband taken by an aneurysm in the middle of the night at his upholstery shop, a few decades later. I reminded myself that Libby had to deal with plenty of dead mice and worse during her lifetime, and damnit, here I was on the Upper East Side of Manhattan armed with a fresh pair of yellow rubber gloves and a supply of plastic bags -- I could deal with this. I still try to apply this trick, to become mercenary and tough, but it never really gets any easier.

Guilt aside, it’s the psychological aspect of an infestation that gets me. It’s no good pretending I haven’t seen a mouse dart between my kitchen and hall closet when I suspect I have. And it’s no good pretending the brown specks on my stovetop are charred bits of rice. These denial strategies only leave me filled with more despair when the inevitable true sighting occurs (a highlight so far being the cute little mouse butt and tail I saw leaping out of my Calphalon pot full of leftover rice to disappear back into the stove last year).

Really, the only thing that allows me to cope is a little trick my boyfriend invented to comfort me, which is to imagine these creatures as sort of cartoony and cute visitors. “Imagine,” he'll say, “all these little guys dressed up in tiny marching-band outfits, the drum guy, the guy with the baton, all their funny hats, filing through your apartment, a Mouse Jamboree!” Then he'll hum a little tootle-y Mouse Jamboree song and I'll laugh and, at least temporarily, feel a sense of peace and fondness for these silly characters. It works, really. The guy can make me laugh myself out of any problem.

... Until nights like this one, when I get home from work, alone, casually glance at the trap in the kitchen, and see yet another stiff tail. I’m not in the mood to deal with it and I’m not in the mood to laugh about it and I’m not going to call anyone else to help me deal with a problem humanity has managed to cope with for centuries. Instead, I’m just going to sit here blogging about it for a while, and then maybe toast the latest fallen Jamboree member with a glass of sauvignon blanc. R.I.P., little city mouse.

Comments

[Colie]

E - You are an excellent writer. If I dare say it---this mouse tale, ahem, touched me. See? You are bringing life out of death!

[e]

Aw, thanks, CH! That's such a sweet sentiment. Hopefully the Mouse Jamboree up in Mouse Heaven agrees with you.

[Kim]

You have no idea how much your blog has helped me cope. I am new to city living and just found that a mouse has been eating through my chips ahoy in my kitchen cabinets and leaving little presents for me all over the kitchen. Being very upset, I searched for extermination and came across your article. It made me laugh and realize that I am not the only one that has to deal with this. I too have never seen a mouse in my 27 years or have been to a funeral.
PS I also had a Lituanian Great Grandfather :)

[city mouse]

Not your Chips Ahoy! That's the worst. I always feel so violated when they get to the food! Thanks for your comment -- I really do recommend the D-Con snap traps with peanut butter and/or cheese. Also, stopping up any cracks and crevices with steel wool. Also, peppermint oil on cotton balls supposedly serves as a deterrent. Also ... oh, I could go on but you'll get the idea. If you just moved to NYC, you should know that your landlord is technically responsible for keeping your building vermin-free -- this is more theory than reality, but it doesn't hurt to let them know. Good luck :)

[hartwelldy]

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