A Conflicted View To A Kill

I'm A Monster, But I Feel Bad About It. Kind Of.

A couple of days ago, I saw a plump mouse waddling between the basement rec room and the furnace room. I stifled a scream, though I wasn’t so much scared as startled. I didn’t consider the mouse a threat, just an unfortunate surprise.

Then, as soon as Sam got home from work, I ratted on the mouse.

I felt terrible about this, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, even though the mouse was cute, and even though I knew by revealing its existence, along with the exact whereabouts of its little turd-strewn hidey-hole, I was, in effect, signing its death warrant.

I am such a damn hypocrite! I don’t eat meat because I refuse to have animals killed on my behalf, but I don’t have a problem with having someone else do my dirty work for me, someone else who will unhesitatingly set an inhumane trap for this small creature whose worst offense is pooping.

It tore me up inside, but before Sam took off for work yesterday, I asked him if he had remembered to set the trap. He hadn’t, but promised he would when he got back.

Here’s the deal: I want to be either a.) the kumbaya earth mama who says hey there, little guy, welcome to my basement, savor the central heating and occasional crumb, or b.) the dispassionate realist who says mice don’t belong in houses, period; they are pests, not pets, and as such, must be exterminated. But I’m just the squishy middle ground, a spineless bog-monster who summons a tax lawyer/executioner with instructions to “take care of the problem.”

This morning, I want to apologize to the hapless mouse, who may be dead now, I don’t even know, and I’m not about to look. Even though I didn’t kill the mouse myself, I might just as well have, first telling Sam about it, then, reminding him yesterday to set the trap, and now, at this moment, absolutely intending to tell Sam the second he gets home that he might want to check the trap, and hoping to God it worked.