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I have two sets of room mates, the inanimate ones like my printer and treadmill and the animate ones like Mike and the mice that seem to enjoy the coat closet. Each follows their own set of graces but recently the activities of the mice has raised alarm. Normally, they scurry around. Sometimes, they traverse slowly the living room floor as I imagine one would cross an unstable ice shelf, slowly until given reason to run. They don’t seem to consume my food nor poop anywhere conspicuous so I’ve ignored them until last week.

A mouse was on the counter top (which was new) and I managed to trap it in a flower vase and drop it in a lot two blocks away. The next day, I saw another mouse on the countertop and this one, faster than his friend, leaped onto the surface of the range (it was off) and dashed up the oven vent into the oven proper. This cannot stand. In my own house, I must be able to arbitrarily activate my oven without trepidation. The idea of having a toasted member of Mus musculus trigger the smoke alarms in short order will trigger nightmares. So, I put out non-lethal traps.

They’re pretty straight forward. A clear-topped steel box into which one puts some food is reachable via spring-supported ramps. Once the mouse crosses the ramp, the door closes behind them. Splendid. But I have Philadelphia public school mice. They are incapable of using it. Tonight, I saw two mice on two separate occasions approach the trap, sniff at it. Enter the one-way entrance and not quite make it through. You can call them clever but I think them fools. I will be rid of them one way or another and may choose less non-lethal options next.

I wonder if this is what conquering colonial powers feel like. “Just integrate and follow rules and everything would be fine. But you don’t so we have to put heads on pikes”. Is there another way for us to come to terms? Am I missing something? Am I letting my values override theirs? They carry toxoplasma gondii which is categorically an unwelcome guests.

Please mice, embrace the cracker and learn to use doors so we may live together in peace.

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My productivity has been… below average over the last few days.  I encountered some roadblocks that I’ve not had the capacity to tackle in a meaningful way and I just finished a tech project that also made it appear that I was suddenly doing nothing.  My boss saw me sitting listlessly reading the forums for a software tool we used and said “I need to talk to you about something later.”  Crippling existential dread would probably be the appropriate descriptor to the response I have to such statements.  I know I’m being fired in two months, but still, I’d rather go gracefully.  I quickly went through the checklist of things I could do right now that my boss could reasonably ask me if I’ve completed and over two hours knocked off three of them.  Later, he returned called me into his office and asked the following:

Him: Terry, there’s something I’ve been meaning to bring up with you for a while but just haven’t known how to approach it.
Me: Yes?
Him: Well, to put it bluntly, my mouse sucks.  Do you have a recommendation for one?
Me: Yes, the Logitech G500.
Him: *checks Amazon* That looks like it’ll do perfectly.  Your usefulness never seems to end.

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We’ve been going through another mouse influx and after 28 tiny executions I thought we were done.  The rodent slayings slowed to a trickle with today’s coming after two days of silence among the four traps placed.  I popped open the cabinet and grabbed the trap containing the last scion of the Robinson’s mus line.  I felt bad for a minute thinking the little bastard had died alone after we picked off his family one by one terrorized by hunger after clearing out the food cabinets until I heard a rustling behind me.  I turned to a see a mouse in my dog Max’s food bowl.  He jammed a few pieces of kibble into his mouth and jumped back through a hole in the kick space.

Until I find a way to have Max eat around a mousetrap it appears I’m limited to killing the dumb ones.  War is hell.

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The mice have figured out how to pass by the palisade of alcohol which normally keeps our two worlds separate and with that our primary cabinet for cereal has been expanded to crackers and mouse poop in terms of uneaten contents.  I went to Lowes’ to buy mousetraps and was curious about a new type of sticky traps that seemed to have embedded pesticides.  My two favorite went under the grade name of “euthanol” and “genonide”.  They were probably going to market something with “holocaustium” until the Anti_defamation League convinced them otherwise.

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As winter descends, the mice have returned to the house of Robinson and the cabinet containing our cookies, crackers and cereals has fallen victim to several daring midnight raids.  The mice have become smart enough to avoid the traps, maybe because they smell like dead mice, so I tried a new tactic.  I took all my brother’s excess liquor and placed rows against the cabinet.  They could probably more a single bottle, so I used 3 layers thing of bottles to stop them starting with daquiri mix and getting harder as one goes forward finally ending in a row of 141 and vodka.

I don’t think they’ll get through.  And if they do, I imagine they’ll have an Absolut blast doing it.

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With no triggered traps in 2 days and a total mouse-skull count of 15 I removed the traps and thought the mouse problem had disappeared.  Later that day while craving cereal I saw the mice had returned and were eating my Raisin Nut Bran.  I replaced the traps and the death count is up to 18.  I fear the rodents and my family may be beginning some primitive form of trench warfare.

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For the last few days I’ve been seeing blobs of color our of my right eye.  Today I saw one that appeared to move while I drive and figured it was time to see a doctor until moments later a mouse poked his head over the front passenger seat and gave me a “howdy, neighbor” look.  I thought nothing of this until later I heard a chewing noise shortly followed by my front right speaker going silent. Now I only have a 12″ woofer providing sound, and NPR has started to sound like Charlie Brown’s parents.  This means war.

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For the last few days I’ve been seeing blobs of color our of my right eye.  Today I saw one that appeared to move while I drive and figured it was time to see a doctor until moments later a mouse poked his head over the front passenger seat and gave me a “howdy, neighbor” look.  I thought nothing of this until later I heard a chewing noise shortly followed by my front right speaker going silent. Now I only have a 12″ woofer providing sound, and NPR has started to sound like Charlie Brown’s parents.  This means war.

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The mouse death count is now up to 15 and I have proof that they’re getting more desparate or lazy:  Today, a single mouse had his head in one trap and his leg in another.  Overachiever.

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The mouse death count is now up to 15 and I have proof that they’re getting more desparate or lazy:  Today, a single mouse had his head in one trap and his leg in another.  Overachiever.