The Mouse

The Mouses Bathroom

I think the mouse must be in here!

I consider myself to be a tough individual.  I don’t know why.  I have little proof to back it up, but there I sit, and when I think of myself, tough isn’t something I wouldn’t describe myself as (I’m not shouting it from the rooftops, but I’m also not dismissing it either).

I’m not tough.  I am scared of squeaky noises I think are mice.  I am scared of something shaking that I didn’t shake and I think it’s a mouse.  I’m scared of a mouse that’s not scared of me.  But it must be cause it squeaks (in fear?), it doesn’t come out when I’m around either.  And I’m bigger and I play loud music.  He’s so scared he literally shits himself all over my stove.

I have no idea why I have a mouse, though I’m pretty sure it comes in through the stove.  Once, Starr and I were hanging out like we do one Sunday afternoon when we heard a squeak or metal or both.  We both jumped a bit, her more than me, which gave me some courage to be more courageous.  Be the man and all.  I inched over and about 20 minutes later (when I’d gotten 4 feet across the floor) I found nothing.  But since then I noticed there were alot of rocks on my dish rack and stove.  Why were all these little, long rocks there, all over the place?

POOP! The damn mouse comes out at night, poops on my stove and leaves!  I clean up it’s poop and then it comes back and poops again!  The mouse is laughing at me.  It makes me so angry that I put out a trap.  Not at night though.  I don’t want to wake up to the mouse.  That scares me.  I’m too vulnerable when I’m in my underwear.  I need a bio suit or something or at least denim.  On my legs, and denim on my arms and face and hands would be good too.

In theory, I’m really not scared.  I think about the mouse, about how small it is and think and think and think about it and it’s not scary at all.  Really.  It’s a little mouse that I know is almost cute.  I’m 100 times its size and weigh 300 times as much.  It’s really small and he’s obviously scared of me because I leave food out and he’s too scared to even touch it.  Yummy cakes.  Instead the mouse just shits in front of it.  WHY?  Why, if he’s so scared of me would he do that?  Mocking me every night, only coming out just to poop on my stove.  Laughing that little mouse laugh because he knows his size doesn’t matter cause he’s got some bravado death wish or something that little fucking asshole mouse.

It’s like his friends dare him or something.  It makes so angry thinking of it.  And that led me to get the trap.  Forget the noises and squeaks and I’m tired of little long pebbles on my stove and like the Dog Whisperer says, you have to be a pack leader.  Pack leaders aren’t scared of mice.

I knew I’d catch the little sucker tonight.  I was all set to come home tonight and imagined having a Tom & Jerry-esque escapade around my apartment ending with my hand swiping around inside a mousehole (which the mouse then dresses up as a girl that I then somehow end up getting the hots for).  So I cleared the counter, put out a trap with salami on the inside on top of the stove, put two plastic bags next to the door so that I could come home and put him away and toss him as soon as I got home and even bought some industrial gloves from the hardware store just because my denim-bio-suit wasn’t ready yet.

I was cool the entire walk home.  Armed with my burrito, I climbed the stairs.  At the last step I heard a squeak and my heart sank, my stomach clenched, my throat closed up and my heart started racing and all that talk of being tough I’d given myself all day went out the toilet.  So sad.  I started stamping my feet.  I listened for the squeak and heard it again.  The little mother-son-of-a-bitch was in there, squeaking, writhing in the glue.  I imagined it, imprisoned all day, watching the sun set behind the shades unaware of how it’s routine had become his nightmare now that he was unable to move, and unaware of what was in store for him.  He’d had hours to think about it.  He’d probably gotten quite, like prisoners do, until their faceless captors come stomping down the hall and then they begin to plead for their life.  That’s what I was imagining while on the steps outside my door…and it was freaking me out.  I, instead of being the specter of death that the mouse was picturing was, instead, running up past my door and up the next flight of stairs.  I knocked on my landlords door (we’re friends, right?) but no answer.   I decided the squeaking was paralyzing me and so I had an idea.  I took out my headphones and put them in my ears.  I put on Motley Crue’s Red, White, and Crue and turned it up so that I couldn’t hear anything except Vince Neil screaming Shout At The Devil!  My whole body was shaking.  My heart was racing.  I put the key in and jumped back.  Jumped forward and turned it and pushed the door open.  Jumped back.  Nothing.  Jumped forward, and turned on the light.  One light.  I was going nowhere.  I took off an ear and listened but didn’t hear anything.  I checked my watch.  Shit. The game was starting (World Series Game 5).  I had to do something but I hadn’t gotten worked up like this for so long.  I was supposed to skydive a couple of months ago but didn’t but I imagine my body was clenched in a similar fashion to a freefall from 13,000 feet.  Okay, game.  Gotta do something. The way my apartment is arranged, you walk in, there’s a little wall and behind it is the stove, so I need to get inside to see what’s going on and I can’t just inch my way forward because then I”ll be on top of what, I can’t imagine.  I don’t hear anything and no box is dancing around on the floor , squeaking like I imagined it would be, so I summon my lack of  courage and run in, past the small wall to the far end of the apartment.  Motley Crue is blasting and I initially don’t see anything.  My music goes soft and maybe the thing is dead.   My mom is calling.  MOMTHERESAMOUSEANDIMFREAKINGOUTIDONTKNOWITSINMYAPARTMENTANDIMSICKANDITSTHEREANDIKNOWITANDICANTMOVEANDIMFREAKINGOUT…Something like that (I’m so sad).   But where’s the mouse?!  I take out my headphones and turn on the tv to get some sound in the place.  The phone goes dead.  I put the bags on my hand and look over at the stove.  The mouse isn’t there I think.  I need to be certain.  I need to get to the perfect angle to see through the trap and be positive (even though my logic says the trap would be moving and I know it’s not there).  A squeak! (I think).  It must be in the other trap.  The one I didn’t put out but instead left balanced on top of cup of water.   I’m so stupid and clouded by fear of what I don’t understand.  It’s that damn squeak that sound freaks me out.  Even on the subway, when a train screeches to a halt, or a dump truck outside my apartment hits the break with a squeak.  That makes my stomach clench.  I’m so far gone I take a picture, zoomed in all the way at the trap, I then view the picture and zoom into the trap (inconclusive).  But there’s no mouse.  There’s no dead mouse.  My mom calls back and I come to terms with myself.  I consider myself tough.  But I’m not.  Why do they squeak???

Everyone in New York has mice, a mouse, a rat, roaches, beetles, waterbugs, snakes, racoons, babies, or some sort of animal and a story from the plethora of apartments they all live, have lived, in.  It’s a rite of passage of all New Yorkers.  I need to kill this mouse.  I want to kill it for territory.  Like a pack leader does.  It’s okay.  Animals kill for territory all the time (I googled it today).

UPDATE: 2 days later and no mouse.  I discovered today that the distinct squeaking I heard the other day while coming up the stairs was, in fact, the stairs.  As Balzac said, ‘Our greatest fears lie in anticipation’.