It was only a dream...

Yesterday afternoon, as I was bringing in groceries from the car, I was startled as a little gray mouse skittered across the floor of the garage. He stopped, twitched his nose for a moment, and then scampered off to a quiet corner where I could not thwack him with a shovel if I tried.

As if I would thwack him. You know better.

I stood for a moment, contemplating what to do, when it occurred to me that I was just going to let him live a peaceful life in the corner of the garage. Stupid, you say? Ridiculously girly? I think not. I decided then and there that not only would allowing him to live help my karma, but also that enough time has passed that the trauma of the mouse incident can now be told.

You see, he (she/it) is just a little mouse. There is nothing in the garage that I worry greatly about him eating, and he deserves a safe little haven in which to live out his furry little life.

Others have not been so lucky.

There was, to be honest, the cute little mouse dude I found in the basement a few years ago. I couldn't thwack him, either, but the truth is that I was likely more afraid of him than he was of me. After several minutes of dancing around the family room area squealing and wondering what to do, I managed to scoop him up in a box and toss him out the front door. After my heart stopped racing and I started breathing again, I felt pretty good about myself for having spared his life.

But.

But.

Then came Mickey and Goofy.

When poor Stuart the gerbil died, I told A he could get a new pet. We went to Petsmart, and spent what felt like hours looking around at all of the fuzzy creatures in the cages. He decided he wanted a mouse. And since they were so small, couldn't he get two? It would be so nice for them to have a friend to hang out with when he wasn't home, blah blah blah.

I gave in. The barely post-pubescent boy working the rodent area assured us that it was a good idea - since they were all from the same litter, they would be great together and live longer for the companionship they found in each other.

Great. Just what I needed. Mice that lived longer.

But we brought them home, set them up in their cage, and A was happy. He played with them, let them crawl all over him while he was watching tv, and showed them off to his friends. Everyone was happy. Except me, because they smelled awful, but that's another story.

A few weeks later, A came to me, a bit concerned. "Goofy keeps chasing Mickey around the cage. I don't think he likes him very much." I wasn't sure what to make of this. I hoped to God that Mickey wasn't a little girl mouse, stuck in with the boys...baby mice would be enough to put me over the edge. A decided he was going to keep an eye on them and see what happened.

Well. Something happened, alright. A couple of evenings later, I heard the wail that makes every mother in the world drop whatever is in her hands and run for dear life to wherever it is that the sound is coming from. Like dolphin radar, I zoomed in on A's room and made it up the stairs in about four steps as I was hearing it.

"Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooommmm!!!"

When I arrived, A was sitting on the floor in front of the cage. A look of great horror masked his little face. "What? What's wrong?" I gasped.

"Goofy."

"Ate."

"Mickey's."

"Head."

"Off."

Time stopped for a moment. I was having difficulty comprehending the reality of the situation. I was stunned into Seinfeldian stupor.

"Ate it?"

A nodded.

"Off?"

He nodded again, tears falling down his cheeks.

"Ate?"

More nodding.

"Off."

Head dropped to chest.

"Wow."

I tiptoed over, suddenly afraid of the evil mouse monster that could show such cruelty. I peeked in the cage, where Goofy was cowering in a corner. I glanced to the other end, and sure enough, there was the headless body of Mickey, laying in a pile of bedding.

No, I didn't quite vomit.

But I had to clean it up. It was almost more than I could stand. I tentatively reached in, pulled out the murderer, and tossed him unceremoniously into the exercise ball. "Watch him." I said to A. Then I took the entire cage down to the garage, where I dumped the contents into the garbage can. Thinking quickly, I pulled a box off of the shelf, threw some of the bedding into it, and sealed it with duct tape. A could believe that I picked Mickey out and put him in there. We would have a funeral later.

For weeks, A contemplated what to do about Goofy. We considered bringing him back to Petsmart, but they claimed they would not take him back. We thought about letting him go, but after I told A that it was a natural dominant instinct that lead him to kill,he felt bad for him. He ended up staying, and A eventually forgave him for the transgression (as boys will do, I suppose).

Fast forward about two years later.

Goofy was getting old. And by old, I mean utterly disgusting. The tip of his tail was turning black, he had scratched all of the fur off of his face, and he looked like a zombie mouse creature from beyond the grave. When he started to bleed around his eyes, I decided enough was enough. It was time to send him to meet his maker. And his murdered brother.

This, of course, posed a problem. What does one do with a pet mouse that needs to die? I did what any woman would do. I called the boy's father.

"Goofy needs to die," I said.

After a long pause, he asked what the hell I was talking about. Since he was planning to come over later that evening to pick A up, I intended to drop the problem into his lap and be done with it. After all, he's a man, right?

Kind of.

"Oh, God," he said. "I still haven't recovered from the angel fish."

I rolled my eyes. I vaguely remembered back in 1995, when we took down the aquarium. There was one giant angel fish that hadn't died, and we'd done something to get rid of it. I couldn't remember what. I scoffed at him.

"Don't you remember?!" He exclaimed.

"No, what did we do?"

"We flushed it!!" he nearly squeaked.

I remembered then. It had been bad. But nothing was going to beat this.

The two of us spent about a half hour on the phone, searching the internet for humane ways to kill mice. I called a vet. I was told it would cost $90 to have them take care of it. This was simply not an option.

Since A refused to accept letting him go outside (it was about 10 degrees out there), whacking him in a pillow case (okay, I wouldn't let that happen, either), or any other easy, quick kill method, it was determined that the only way to accomplish the dirty deed with the least guilt possible was to use the method described in a website that dad found. We would create a miniature gas chamber filled with carbon dioxide by combining baking soda and vinegar, and send him off into a nice, peaceful sleep from which he would never awaken.

The bitch of it?

When dad came to pick him up, the two of them decided it was best for A not to be there when it happened. They rushed out of the house before I could protest (much), wished me luck, and disappeared into the night.

There I was. Standing in the kitchen with a box of baking soda, a bottle of vinegar, an already half-dead mouse, and a set of plastic bowls. Those bastards had completely weaseled out of everything. I was stuck.

I couldn't make this shit up if I tried, you know.

I sat at the kitchen table for several minutes, wondering how I'd gotten myself into this mess. Why didn't I just force the men to take care of it? Isn't that what men do? What do I keep them around for, anyway? Why couldn't I be one of those women who can turn on the waterworks on a moment's notice in order to get her way?

I thought about just letting him go outside. I contemplated moving out of the house then and there so I didn't have to deal with it. I also thought about mailing the damn thing back to dad.

But in the end, I placed a small plastic bowl inside of the larger bowl. I set Goofy inside the larger bowl, too. I filled the small bowl with baking soda, then poured an entire bottle of vinegar into it. In a flash, I covered the big bowl with the lid.

I stood there listening. I heard tiny claws clicking against the bottom of the bowl as Goofy walked around a bit. More clicking, a bit of rustling, and then it grew quiet. I waited. Another click.

Then nothing.

I had killed the mouse.

Without opening the bowl, I gingerly picked it up, walked carefully to the garage to avoid sloshing god-knows-what around, and deposited the thing into the garbage can. There would be no funeral this time.

Then I promptly left the house to go play cards at M's house. I wasn't about to be haunted for the evening.

On my way there, I called the boys and told them the deed was done. A never asked about it again. I never brought it up. The guilt consumed me...this wasn't like squishing a spider (which is bad enough, really) or accidentally running over a little frog with my car. I had become a cold-blooded, calculated killer.

I couldn't even blog about it. That's how bad it was.

Until yesterday, when I saw the cute little guy in the garage. Knowing my house, he will die a horrible, painful death on his own...it's just a matter of time. But I will not set a trap. I will not put out poison. I will let fate hold him in its hands, and I will step away.

I will not have more mousy blood on my hands, I swear to you.

So yes, call me a murderer. Call me a heartless bitch. But know that yesterday, I let one little mouse live.

May God save my soul.