Once Again

Yes. We’ve heard the pitter patter of tiny feet around here for the past few days. Very tiny feet. It was so funny and cute when we thought it was a lizard. OH-ho! Ho! Look! It’s a lizard! Our home is blessed and we’ll have no insects running around willy-nilly! Let’s set up a small bed in an empty matches box! I’ll make him a tiny quilt in case he gets cold! Good times.

Apparently, birdseed attracts rodents. Who knew? And our bird (with no name) is messy. I’ve had birds before that were messy and so I’m not surprised at the end of the day when there is a smattering of seeds and hulls on the carpet underneath the cage waiting for a good dustbustering. But I swear, this bird sticks his beak in the seed dish and just writhes his head back and forth. He looks like a dog exuberantly shaking his fur after a bath. Or me shaking my hair in the wind. He sometimes hits me over 6 feet away! Maybe he’s aiming. (Give me an effin name already, woman!) I’m making him a cage skirt toot sweet. He looks great in green.

In any case, these brazen mice that run the baseboard from the cage to the fireplace and up and out are not lacking for food. They dosey-do, do the soft-shoe and then tip their tiny hats in thanks as they leave. And then they party all night at their secret hangout at the top of the chimney getting drunk on zinfandel out of tiny thimbles and sharing a cheesepuff while talking about what terrible television we watch at our house. We’re completely uncultured.

Call me old or ornery or curmudgeonly (or sad since I wasn’t invited to the party) as you please but I’m sorry – no more mice in the house. Thank you.

But I did cry when the first little guy got stuck on the sticky strips. He squeaked. I cried. I called Joe and he walked me through the steps of putting him in the dumpster. (Which, seriously, I think I could have figured out. I’ve got a few ounces of common sense. But I tend to use My Man for these types of things. Does that make me weak? Look! A spider!)

I realize that the more humane way to deal with the mouse would have been to put him out of his misery, but I could not abide smashing him in any way shape or form. And I didn’t want to let him go because he would most likely just come down the chimney again and back into my rodent-free zone. And I didn’t have enough oil to pour on him anyway to remove him from the sticky strip. And if it’s hot tomorrow, won’t the oil on his fur just get really hot and crispy and make him a tasty fried snack for a bird, cat or snake? And that, in turn, would most likely make those animals ill. I can’t take all that responsibility.

And I am in denial because I’m imagining he found tiny broken toothpicks and was able to extricate himself like we would in quicksand, completely intact but with rumpled clothing and wacky hair. Immediately afterwards, he put on a freshly ironed Hawaiian shirt, wrapped the kerchief around his walking cane and took a train to Philly. He’ll soon be working as a bouncer in a bordello.

But, no! Instead, he is in a box with a bag tied around him in the dumpster. And all I can think about is The Secret of NIMH and how now I’m the really awful People who are evil and kill the mice.

I imagine I’ll get over it. Not going through the couch cushions looking for and vacuuming up tiny mice poopy-pellets every morning is going to help.