I moved into this shitty one-room with spattering taps, rattling windows and too many entrances back in September. I moved in because it was ludicrously close to work, four coffee shops (including a Tim’s), three bars, two book stores, a record shop and the farmer’s market. I thought there was something appealingly simple about having everything I could want within a five block radius. I moved in because I wanted a place of my very own – with no roommates, and quiet.
I first heard the noise about a month after I’d moved in, only I didn’t know what it was. It kind of sounded like a scratching, but it also sounded like when you pull a cord through the walls, maybe not as loud. It was unrecognizable and unfathomable that it could be rodents.
Then I saw one. It was late at night in mid-October when it shot out from under the coffee table and run five feet only to immediately shoot back under and disappear, all in the amount of time it took me to gasp. I ran across the room on tiptoes and locked myself in the bathroom with nothing but my cell phone and half a mental breakdown.
I made a panicky call to my brother and he told me he was closing up at his restaurant, but he’d come check out the situation when he was done. Luckily, and inexplicably, there’s a door in the bathroom that leads directly out of the building, so I was able to sneak out without the risk of a face-to-face confrontation with the rat (and in my mind – despite it being about the size of my thumb – it was most definitely a rat).
I walked the two blocks to the restaurant to hang out until he was done. His boss – an alcoholic in his fifties – poured me a glass of wine to the brim (“for your nerves,” he said.) and let me smoke a cigarette in the kitchen. I would have preferred he not allow – or, in fact, suggest – that I smoke in the kitchen. It made me uncomfortable. Going outside would have been better for my nerves. Especially since the old man had always kind of creeped me out because he always made inappropriate comments and only ever called me darlin’. He seemed like he’d had a hard life, so I was kind about it.
After he’d finished closing up shop, my brother came to my place and moved the armoire in the corner I’d last heard the mouse. It wasn’t just cowering in the corner, so my brother was at a loss as to what to do next, so he just kind of concluded it must have left. I – foolishly – believed it to be true.
I wanted to believe it to be true.
It wasn't long before hearing them in the walls became a nightly occurrence. I’d turn a fan on full blast to drown them out – a trick I’d picked up while living for two years a block away from a hospital and another six months living with my brother and his girlfriend, who spent most of their time arguing or worse...
I’d finally gotten place of my own but I still found myself burdened with another noisy roommate, or - as I was coming to grips with - probably roommates. And the thought of each and any of them thoroughly disgusted me.
After a while I noticed they’d expanded their territory to the ceiling as well. I felt surrounded, and as weeks passed I picked up a knack for tracking their exact location on the other side of the drywall. I never got comfortable with it, but I acquiesced just the same. I hadn’t seen one since that first encounter and I’d placated myself with the notion that maybe there weren’t any mice at all, and it was all in my head. Maybe I’d just had a mild hallucination that followed by months and months of extreme paranoia. The thought comforted me.
Then, one night, I came home late, fell into bed and was looking forward to a good drunken slumber until I heard rustling in the garbage. I sprung into action, knotting the bag tightly and tossing it outside into the dumpster, overly-pleased with myself for finally solving that problem.
I wanted to believe it to be true.
Two days later, while investigating the mysterious clanking of empty beer bottles, a mouse jumped out at me when I picked up the case. It was the second sighting and again, all I could do was gasp, then lock myself in the bathroom with nothing but my cell phone and half a heart attack. The breakdown had already taken effect.
I called Griff from the bathroom and he said I had to go to the hardware store and buy mouse traps. “There’s no excuse for you not to have gone already, really,” he said. There was an excuse though. A reason.
I wasn’t sold on the whole mouse trap idea. I’d entertained it, sure, in the middle of the night, when they were being particularly annoying with their scampering and occasional squeaks. And there was something completely chilling about each and every time I caught a glimpse of one. But did that really justify taking their lives? Does mild irritation merit death? I wasn’t so sure.
Later that very same evening, I was sitting on my bed, writing and I heard a particularly loud squeak. I looked over to see one precocious little scamp climbing onto my bed – where I sleep, vulnerable.
That was enough for a proclamation of war. My bed was Poland and the little bastard had invaded it.
I left the house immediately and stayed the night at a friend’s house, then first thing in the morning, I walked across town in the snow just to buy artillery. I bought two mouse traps so I could keep one by my bed for protection. The other was in the kitchen, where they seemed to have a time share.
About three weeks passed after I laid the traps. I hadn’t caught any but I also hadn’t heard anything from the walls or the ceiling or under the stove. I thought maybe mice had evolved enough to recognize mouse traps and got the hell out of dodge. But mouse traps have only been around for around a hundred years and evolution takes a lot longer than that, so that couldn’t be it.
I wanted to believe it to be true.
As if the couple mice that were around had gone to call in reinforcements, after the peaceful interim they were back with a vengeance, John McClane-style, and more vocal than ever.
One night this particular loud mouth woke me up at four in the morning. I followed the noise to find this little shit stuck in its little mouse hole in the corner of my cupboard. Its little back end was wriggling and it’s little tail was squiggling and I didn’t know what to do.
Yes, I’d already reconciled killing them, but not by my own hands. I was just supposed to clean up after the trap had done the dirty work, like those guys in Pulp Fiction. Only the mouse that's dumb enough to get wedged in a hole of its own creation is apparently smart enough to elude my bait. It was mocking me.
Anyway, I was looking at this little mouse squirming and hearing its pathetic little squeals, and I thought, what can I do? I wanted to get rid of it, but I certainly wasn’t going to pick it up by its squirmy little tail. I considered using the end of a broom handle to crush it, but I really couldn’t picture myself doing that. But I had to do something.
I grabbed the Windex from under the sink and I just started spraying. I pulled the trigger over and over with such focus and ferocity, you’d think that I’d been trying to track the mouse down for years after it had murdered my entire family. I sprayed and sprayed until it had finally wriggled itself out of the whole and dashed away so quickly it could have been a magic trick.
After a violent chill, I coated the mouse hole and surrounding area with much, much more Windex, hoping maybe I would poison the whole gang.
I wanted to believe it to be true.
The next morning I saw that the trap in the kitchen had a still little back end and lifeless little tail sticking out of it, and I thought, “Oh. How sad. Poor little guy.” I put the trap and all into a garbage bag, tied it tightly and took it to the dumpster, where I took the slightest moment before a threw the bag in the dumpster. I felt guilty about it. I didn’t want it to have to come to that. I wanted the mouse to live a long and happy life, just not with me.
I went back into the apartment and poked the other trap with a pen so it snapped shut so suddenly it made me gasp. I put the trap in a kitchen drawer and shut it firmly.
I felt a little depressed all day, and it still lingered all the way up until I went to bed that night, though I did find some solace in the possibility of an easy and uninterrupted rest for once.
Then I was awoken at three by the now-distinctive sound of scuttling in the walls. “Those little bastards,” I said, rushing to the drawer where I’d put the remaining mousetrap that morning.
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