A week ago my roommate and I realized we had a mouse in the apartment. We saw him scurrying behind the entertainment center once and then again jumping out of the trash. My roommate's violent interjections and sporadic screams did not make life any easier for me...or the little rodent. Being a researcher, I have worked with mice; the kind of mice that snooze peacefully in a lined cage and wake up for their well-balanced chow; they are spoilt mice. But this mouse was the street kind, the ones that have to fend for themselves and loot by night just to stay alive. He was Mickey, the hustler.
Now we were, by proportion, much bigger and hopefully smarter than the mouse, nonetheless we were scared. I was more worried than scared. See, I don't mind sharing miniscule amounts of food, but clothing, leather jackets, garbage bags, wires etc. would also eventually be targetted, I thought nervously. We called our apartment management and two muscular guys appeared in a doorway, like knights with glue traps. They were at their chivalrous best. "So did the li'l guy scare ya sweetheart!!" they fretted and my rommate, ever the damsel in distress, dramatically fluttered her eyelashes. I am sure even the mouse, if he were watching the cloying scene from somewhere under the sofa, must've rolled his eyes skywards.
The traps were set. They were straight pieces of thick card paper with a layer of the stickiest glue. They were laid in areas where our little house-guest had been seen hiding. After a couple of days of no sightings we began to wonder if he had left. Our next door neighbour reported seeing a mouse in her home and I secretly wondered if it was our own Mickey that had made its way into her home. Why?, I found myself wondering; didn't Mickey like our food. Was I jealous?, I thought, feeling a bit silly. And just as I felt my first pang of missing the unwelcome pet in our house, I saw his furry body make a dash toward the coat closet. The chase was back on.
On the third day of this unfolding drama, my genius of a rommate (bless her!), got her hand stuck on the extremely tricky glue. The trap had worked alright, just not on the right target. Having disentangled her arm, questioned our own intelligence and pondered over a more solid plan of capture, we set out to seek help from the kitchen. A bait would have to be used. Crackers and peanut butter (the one with yummy swirls of jelly and crunchy peanuts that just goes really well with bread, ummm, what was I saying...sorry, food always throws me on a tangent). Anyways, this piece was set on the three traps. One of the pieces was on the very edge, sitting between the layer of glue and the floor. The next morning we woke up to find that piece gone! The mouse had dragged the delicious snack off the glue, keeping his feet on the floor. The little Houdini!! It was war now!
At the break of dawn we were awakened by high pitched little squeals coming from behind a wall in our kitchen. The trap! It had worked. Finally! We gingerly walked toward the trap, armed with a shoe, eager to meet our tiny adversary. And there was Mickey, his fur stuck on the stiff glue. He had finished his meal and smacked his lips, only to realize that he was cemented by the gummy white surface under him. I walked toward him expecting myself to feel satisfied, at having captured him. And as I bend over to examine our prisoner, he looked up at my face, his black eyes, his alarmed pout pointed at me. There was a pleading look on his face. It just moved something in me. Animals have this look in their faces that sometimes makes me wonder how people hunt or how vets put them to sleep. We have a dog called Aibo who might just get away with murder if he titlted his head and gave us his melting brown-eyed, puppy-dog look. It is heartbreaking.
When the maintenance guys came to collect the haul of their trap, we had been agonized for over four hours by the piteous squeals coming from the trap. The guys assured us they would find a way to let Mickey loose, and as much as I wanted to believe them, I didn't think he'd survive being ripped off the gooey surface. I sobbed a little in the shower this morning but like everything else time will heal this too.
For what its worth, I decided to write this little piece as a tribute to little Mickey and his short but adventurous life in our apartment. He was a hero who got caught by human con and did not deserve to die. He will be missed by man and mouse alike.
