Another Mouse Tale, Part V

Part I

Part II

Part III


Part IV





I awoke mildly dispirited from the night before, and lest I be labeled a “sissy” or other such term, it is worth noting the importance of not killing without reason. To wantonly destroy is not “wrong” – concepts such as “right” and “wrong,” “good” and “bad,” are merely constructions that exist in our minds – but it does, if repeatedly enacted, reduce the ecological diversity of an area, and doing that reduces the fitness of that portion of the ecosystem. Reduced fitness, multiplied, is extinction. Thus, to destroy without reason (i.e., for purposes other than food or defense) risks creating a state of mind that, generation upon generation, could lead to our own destruction. It was with this sort of selfish thinking that I rose and lamented the unnecessary death of my roommate. Such sadness, however, would be short lived.





As I entered the kitchen I expected to have a quick clean-up job before me, but to my surprise, the bait that I had left out – a handful of sunflower seeds – was gone. I left out a few more to see if the experiment would repeat itself and, indeed, the following morning those, too, had disappeared. Any sadness I had held was slowly converted into mild disdain for the melancholy (and erroneous) psychological state mouse had subjected me to. I thought it over and concluded that the weight of the bowl landing on him must have dislocated something in a painful way, though he must have been able to relocate it while I had my head turned. Such a thing is not implausible. Mice have the extraordinary ability to squeeze through minute crevices, which I assume is tied to an ability to move their joints in and out of sockets as they fit into spaces too small for their fully rendered forms. Perhaps I had only caused this to happen en masse for mouse, and he needed a minute to pull himself back together. In any case, his health was clear, for he boldly reappeared that next evening as I was preparing the next day’s lesson plans, looking fit as ever. Greater measures clearly were called for.





Resigned to accept the wisdom of others, I visited the local hardware store and inspected their mouse traps. Most of the previously mentioned styles were there, including an epic, live catch machine that could hold up to 20 mice at a time (for the kind-hearted slumlord). I opted for a smaller version.

Based on a simple “see saw” system, this trap's balance would shift once mouse's weight was in the back of it and, by doing so, force the very lightly supported hatch to close on my roommate. Having full faith in my new purchase, I set it up, including more sunflower seeds as bait (ever popular with mouse), and headed out for the evening.

I got back several hours later and, with a bit of excitement, immediately examined the trap. The lid was DOWN. Wary of mouse’s wily ways, I picked it up for the full inspection. Sure enough, it was double the weight it had been when I set it down. Finally.

Vindication

There must have been karma at work, for the day after I convinced mouse to vacate the premises, the raccoon cage was finally taken down. The chicken had slowly decomposed to the point of inducing nausea in anyone who came close, and I assume that the impact of this convinced the grounds keeper, who is also, by chance, the trash-man, that such a thing could not be kept in proximity to his working environment. Nothing had ever triggered the trap, yet the garbage had been, nightly, ransacked by what I imagine must have been a quietly chuckling raccoon. Mr. S_____ remains, as far as I know, frustrated by his inability to control all aspects of his surroundings, though he has, by now, surely forgotten about mouse and the poison he laid out in his own kitchen to try and dispatch him.





Hours after I released mouse to the night, a humidity-driven, New England thunderstorm raced into town. Lightning dropped almost without cessation for 20 minutes as torrential rains poured down. I couldn’t help but think of mouse, relegated to his genetic fate, out in the downpour. What hole might he jump into, unwittingly, that held any number of predators? Which one of the numerous, nesting goshawks (which, by the way, I recently found are very territorial...a story for another day) would spot him in the field? What about the big garter snake that made a home of the rock wall near my apartment? With so many enemies he would have to structure his day around, how could he hope to live a prosperous, fulfilling life? Such were my thoughts as I went through my tasks the next day, filling out the required, “professional development” forms that my job was dependent on, paying my taxes, as ordered, and attending tedious meetings from which little, if any, lasting good would come. I wondered, for all the terror that his days must be fraught with, does Mus musculus have so rough a life as I imagine?











Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But och! I backward cast my e'e,

On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I canna see,

I guess an' fear!





-Robert Burns, “To A Mouse”