Thursday, August 03, 2006

There is a mouse in my house

People, you do not understand what this means. It is a miracle that I have the presence of mind to be writing this as the consciousness of my most unwelcome guest pervades my every waking moment. You can rest assured I won't sleep all night.
There is a mouse in my house right now. Perhaps maybe a tiny little family of mice, living off and behind my back. Eating my crumbs, not paying rent. That I have not booked myself a room at Bellevue for the night is yet another miracle.
I know you are going to tell me that it is a fact of life to have mice at home in NY. Mice and roaches. Even the stray humongous rat, once in a while. Well not for me, it isn't. I have lived for fourteen years in this apartment and I'd like to believe it is totally pest-free.
Some years ago, when Mr. Ex-Enchilada was still here, I believe we saw a mouse. I almost slept in a hotel that night. A little dark lump darted past us and we never saw it again. It came from the guest room. The one today seems to have come from that direction as well. I wonder if it is the same one.
The mouse lives in the guest room. How very thoughtful of it.
Recently, I had a terrifying encounter with one roach which ended with me spraying a full can of insecticide under my stove, which is where I saw it come from. After several piercing screams worthy of a horror film, it took me what felt like three hours to dispose of the corpse. I believe that I thoroughly poisoned myself in the process and that all the food I cook has now a whiff of Raid, but you see, I cannot abide roaches and I cannot abide mice. OK?
So tonight I was eating a Twix bar, watching a Netflix movie, Fateless, a cheerful affair about the Holocaust (with hideous music by Ennio Morricone), and thinking it's so hard to be a Jew I'm sick of it already, when I saw a dark grey little lump dart into the room. I screamed as if I'd seen... a mouse.
The mouse heard me or saw me and hid in the closet. So I went for a broom with the intention of chasing it out of the house. I don't think I'd be capable of killing it with a broom. For that, I'd need a gun. A bazooka would do. I opened the doors of the closet and sure enough, it darted out of the room and into the living room, where I lost sight of it. Next, I went down to the pharmacy and bought a mouse trap that promises that I will not have to see the dead mouse or touch it. I am almost certain that this mouse trap will be useless. But I put some cheese in there, which by the time the mouse tastes it, it will be fondue because the air conditioned in the living room does not work.

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