dammit, Mickey

Nothing can be easy.  NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING can be easy.  Everything has to be stupid.  Mine, it is a stupid life.

I've been sick on and off since last week, mostly existing as a miserable lump unable to keep down much more than the occasional liquid and wobbling neatly to the right every time I get out of bed (which had been never, at best).  But this could not have been an entry about how I was just sick and miserable and sad I was this weekend.  No, no; this has to be about how lovely it was on Saturday to see a mouse.  On the floor.  In my damn bathroom.

As it turns out, and I say this in a neat little 'The More You Know' type way, I am deathly afraid of mice.  I have observed mice in science class, I have had pet gerbils which are basically fatter rounder mice, I have a college degree in Not Being a Retard, but seeing a tiny little housemouse in my bathroom when I was not expecting it and then as it proceeded to RUN AT ME made all my shit go out the window.  Some sort of female lizard brain just switched on and I screamed and screamed and did that little 'oh god it's a mouse' dance that ladies do in old movies. 

Maybe it was a lack of electrolytes but I knew fear.  And I knew panic.  And because I am stupid, that fear and panic came in the form of the tiniest little mouse ever in my god damned bathroom.

It is at this point that I would like to send out my fondest golf clap to Jonathan who really earned his man stripes this weekend.  I can barely take care of myself when I am healthy let alone when I am sick and orchestrating the death of a little cracker- eating poop machine WHILE sick would have been beyond me.  I probably would've given it a name and figured that if I was going to die some mouse disease was going to be it and swept up its poop twice daily.  I would never ever use the bathroom again and could never have anyone over ever.  I love the path of least resistance.

Jonathan did what normal human beings do that prefer not to avoid vermin conflict:  dragged me out to the ShopRite for some fresh air and some mouse traps.  He carefully set and baited them with the delicious peanut butter whose creation you witnessed (something I felt some low level guilt about but was too exhausted and not in the position to insist he used the store bought Skippy I still have in the cupboard), set them around the house after cleaning up every surface, mopping the floors, and hoping for the best.  We waited all through Saturday night whereby we HEARD the stupid mouse, in the bedroom, feet from the bed, eating a cracker at 3 in the morning.  It missed five traps on its way to the corner and kept us awake no matter how much we shook the bed, hissed at it, turned on/off the light, Jonathan hit things with a broom handle, etc.  God damn asshole mouse.

I hadn't seen it at all Sunday but had gotten into the habit of throwing open the door and loudly announcing myself with a mixture of high pitched noises every time I used the bathroom.  We went to bed Sunday night hoping for the best with me peripherally thinking that maybe it wouldn't be back.

Now this is where the story gets...uncomfortable.  About an hour after falling asleep my brain started to do that thing where ambient noise gets reinvented into a dream--I was dreaming I was still in bed but flailing and somehow dropping jewelry and earrings.  I heard a specific metallic clicking and resonance over and over until I woke up enough to realize, oh shit, I'm not moving, I'm not dropping anything, I'm in bed, I was just asleep.  My first thought, which I woke Jonathan up for, was that it was eating the peanut butter off the trap and was moving the thing around but not trapped.  Fucking asshole mouse!  The next realization, after minutes of agonizing and trying to listen and figure out what was happening--the trap had gone off.  The mouse was in the trap.  The mouse was decidedly in the trap and not dead.  I will not tell you how because it is gross, but it was in the trap, not dead, and trying to move around, it was pushing the trap around.  God dammit.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.  I don't actually know what happened from here because I spent the next moments either hidden under the covers or safely in the bathroom with some peace of mind, but my basic understanding is that Jonathan used a dustpan to sweep up the Mouse+Trap and neatly deposited it into a trashcan outside.  I did feel seriously bad and said what only can be categorized as I'm Sorry You're Dying a Slow Death, Mouse prayer before going back to bed, but wasn't sure what the hell else to do.  Plus it was 1 am and I wasn't nearly about to Google that shit.

I can safely say I have no idea what I would have done in that situation and am hoping, PRAYING that this is the only god damn mouse in the house.  Honestly, given all the variables--fuck that shit.  I probably would've just moved.