eek fest 2006...
okay. i'm seriously wondering what the hell is wrong with the universe. know what woke me up this morning? the tiny sounds of a tiny mouse squeaking his little heart out because he had become the plaything of milo and kenobi. it was awful! but let me start at the beginning...
so, it's last evening, around 6:00ish, and i'm in my bedroom. the cats are making a ton of noise in the bathroom, knocking into stuff, running around. catfights are fairly common around here, so i thought nothing of it...until...i notice a tiny grey thing run across the bathroom floor. and what do i do? all 5'9", fully grown, perfectly capable me? i scream and jump up on my bed, and then start yelling for the cats to kill the mouse. and if that didn't already make me the girliest girl that ever girled, i grab my phone and call someone who is totally incapable of doing anything to remedy the situation. probably for the best, the answering machine picked up.
and then i left the house. not because of the little furry grey guy, but because i had movie plans. and i left with the high hopes that while i was gone, milo and kenobi would act on their catty instincts and kill themselves a mouse.
no such luck. fade to the early hours of the morning... the mouse is back, the cats are again in attack mode, and everybody's making a lot of noise. i'm in bed, not wanting to move for fear that i'd disrupt the national geographic special going on under my dresser. but the sounds of the little mouse squeaks are just too much. so i did the best i could -- pulled a pillow over my head and tried to go back to sleep.
and now, we've just completed act three... milo was digging at a corner in my room, trying to get behind a shoe box. kenobi was standing by, ready to contribute to the action, once it commenced. after a few minutes (i'm fascinated by all of this, mind you -- i could have watched this scene for hours), milo gives up, so i figure he needs a little help. i moved the shoe box back from the wall, and there, in a tiny crack, i see an unmoving little round grey body and a tail. thinking that the cats had done what they needed to do, and having to pee, i walk into the bathroom. and a few seconds later, who should follow me but kenobi, with the tiny mouse in her mouth! and it's not dead!!! so what do i do? oh, you know, i scream...twice. and the cats chase the mouse around until he escapes into my closet, where he is now, probably pooping in all of my shoes.
so, here's what i'm thinking right now...
first of all, why do i go from a strong, fierce warrior of justice to a shrieking pile of wuss at the sight of a tiny mouse? what the hell is it going to do to me? in talking this over with a friend last night, he asked what is it, evolutionarily, that makes people freak the fuck out about tiny gross things? i'm totally guilty of that -- mice, spiders, roaches, (and the worst of all time:) centipedes -- all make my skin crawl. i mean, WTF?
second of all, we as a society should never have domesticated cats. they're completely worthless. milo and kenobi are so proud of themselves for this little battle they've begun, but i know and you know and they know that they're never going to actually kill the mouse. they're both silly little friendly cats who think that this is a new little toy for them to bat around. if their intention was to act upon their hunting instincts, they would have already done so.
third of all, what the hell do i do with this little mouse? i can't get a trap. i hate mouse traps. they're so cruel and awful. but i don't really want a mouse to set up camp in my apartment... such a conundrum...
posted by emily @ Wednesday, March 08, 2006
4 comments
4 Comments:
If it's trapped in your closet, could you sort of get it into a shoebox or container of some kind and put it outside? I really hate the fact that poor Mr. Fute is being tormented (and who knows how long it will go on). But "catching and releasing" him is easier said than done. Michael and I spent about three hours one evening in our apt in Seattle trying to figure out how to catch a giant spider (hairy and disgusting, and still gives me the shivers) hanging out on our bathroom ceiling. We eventually trapped it in a waste basket and ran outside and flicked it into the street, screaming like little girls all the way. So perhaps we'll give you a hand later when we get home... because trapping little creatures is our specialty.
no way -- a bobcat would not kill me. i could totally take it. milo and kenobi, on the other hands, would be goners. hmmm... is the tradeoff worth it? where does one go about renting a bobcat anyway?
The spider is a flawed analogy. The mouse hasn't inadvertantly made its way inside nor would it prefer to be set loose in the wild. If you don't kill it, it's going to come back to your apt. or infest someone else's.
I don't know how you catch mice humanely, perhaps there's a havahart mouse trap available. There is a guy called Critter Control who does humane trapping and releasing- I've used him to catch squirrels in the attic. He's good, but he'll probably cost you 50-100 bucks.
Bite the bullet and go buy mousetraps. You need 2. The cheap basic one works best, but it's a bitch to set. Bait it with peanut butter. What I do if there's a mouse and my husband isn't around to act manly, I put the baited trap in a cardboard box, like a beer case, laid on its side with the opening facing the cupboards and against the cupboards. That way, in the morning you don't have to see the dead mouse at all if you can finesse picking up the box and pitching it. You need to repeat the operation the following night to be sure you've got a lone mouse. If you catch another mouse, repeat the operation until you either don't catch any more or feel the need for the landlord to call an exterminator. Good luck.
ps everyone shrieks when they see a mouse, men just shriek at a lower pitch.
I say just don't feed the cats for a couple days...they'll get the idea eventually. Problem is, they're liable to leave the feet or tail or some other part of the critter around for you to find. At least that's what every person I've ever known who has had a cat has told me they do.
Post a Comment
<< Home