Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Squeak!

We finally caught the mice who have been terrorizing our apartment for the past few weeks.

They died, side by side, on a big ol' sticky trap under the bed. So, were they moseying along on their way to poop on my pillow again, when they took a wrong turn? Did they stick simultaneously, or did one get stuck first? Did Mouse #2 try to rescue him, thereby dooming himself? Or was Mouse #2 lured to his dead comrade by mousey cannibalistic urges--thinking to himself, "Squeak, squeak!" (translation: "I'd love a nice mouse steak. Screw those Triscuits in the pantry!") before pouncing on the carcass of his colleague--inadvertently signing his own rodential death warrant?

So many mysteries. So many ways to express the idea of accidentally getting your paws stuck in glue that smells like peanut butter and dying of dehydration.

I'm just glad they were already dead so I didn't have to come up with a humane way to kill them. The labor agreement at the Palatial Quarters demands that I deal with the live vermin, and Manfriend, the dead. Usually we catch 'em still squeaking, which usually means putting the mouse, avec sticky trap, in a shopping bag, and delivering death in one fell swoop of a cast-iron skillet. On the porch. In my pink bathrobe.

Maybe I should make an executioner's mask to match.