Several months ago I noticed some mouse shit in the places in my kitchen that don’t get cleaned as often as they should, i.e. under the fridge, underneath the chest freezer, and under the sink. I can’t even begin to express how sickening the thought of having rodents in my house is to me, just let it suffice to say that I am not a vegetarian because I am an animal lover, I can’t stomach the thought of eating a dead animal.

I discussed the various options with Alex and he honestly really didn’t seem to care until I mentioned sprinkling the pellet poison everywhere mice might go. “We can’t do that because the cats might eat a poisoned mouse and die!” When I responded that might be fair payback for the cat barf stains I still can’t get out of the carpets as well as the fact that one of our cats, Hazel, likes nothing more than to pee on our laundry and he gave me the evil eye I knew I’d have to find another way.

I went to the store in search of other alternatives. They had the snap traps, or whatever the hell they’re called, but I envisioned a scream from one of my kids and a trip to the ER with an unfortunately mangled toe or finger. Or one of our cats with their paw caught and the yowling and the 3000 dollar vet bill. I looked at the glue traps, but the thought of waking up in the morning and stumbling to my coffee maker to make coffee only to be greeted by a still alive mouse trying to escape with his little feet stuck on the glue pad, oh no. I almost considered the humane traps, where you catch them and then let them free, but where would I let them out? I thought of my next door neighbor’s front yard, in payback for all of the nights he has awakened me by revving his engine, but there is always someone awake at that house and the momentary glee at releasing rodents in his front yard would no doubt dissipate quickly when Johnny Bad neighbor caught me.

I settled for the Victor Electronic Mouse Trap and bought three of them even though they were around 20 bucks a piece plus the price of batteries. When a mouse is caught a little light flashes and then you dump it (the mouse) in the trash and set it again.

I brought them home and baited them with peanut butter and waited. For a long time I checked every single day to see if the light was flashing, but it never was. A couple of times I thought that maybe there was a mouse in there, dead, and that maybe the batteries were defective or something and so I held my breath in anticipation and opened the things. Nothing.

Of course you all know by now the rest of the story, am I right? I continued to clean the kitchen, diligently wiping down the counters and sweeping the floor. I happily noticed that there were no more mouse droppings anywhere, and so by pooping elsewhere those little fuckers tricked me. I believed they were gone.

This morning, after coffee and before dishes I smelled a funny smell in the kitchen. I thought perhaps one of the kids had placed a dirty dish somewhere stupid that I hadn’t noticed and it had rotted or maybe a banana past its prime was hiding behind my cookbooks. Those of you with kids know that these were real possibilities but alas, nothing.

The whole time I was denying the fact that I recognized the smell. It was eerily similar to that day I’ve tried to forget, the day my Mom sent me under the crawl space of her house to “see what that smell is”, and I found a dead squirrel. I promptly tucked my mouth into my shirt and all bent over like the hunchback from Notre Dame tried to back my way out only to see her standing there blocking the entrance, holding a shovel out to me and smiling. Meany. She knew what the smell was; she was just trying to get me back for the rotten teenage years.

Anyway, back to the kitchen. I held my breath and checked the first two traps, nothing. Third trap, bingo was his name oh! I went into the kitchen drawer looking for rubber gloves, realized my kids had probably used them all up filling them with water and throwing them outside so I wrapped my hands with plastic bags and unlocked the front door so that nothing would slow down the mad dash I planned on making to the outside garbage. Only thing is, when the mouse went plop, I noticed there were some larvae like remains still in the trap, and so I threw the whole thing in the garbage bag, tied a knot in it and ran it outside.

After I had washed my hands, opened all of the windows, sprayed air freshener so that now my kitchen smells like papaya citrus scented dead mouse, my kids emerged from their rooms with sitcom ready perfect timing. They both had a good laugh at my expense because they didn’t have to deal with it!

The frugal woman in me realizes that I just tossed a reusable 20 dollar trap away in addition to four batteries that could have gone in my walkman, my remote, hell even my vibrator, but my squeamish stomach has decided to call it a day.