[AN AMERICAN TAIL] Adventures of a Mouseketeer

Picture it: It's Thursday morning.  I'm standing in my kitchen, eating my yogurt, MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS, when a mouse just walks right on by, just like your roommate would. 

I almost heard him say, "Hey, Amanda, what's up?"

Not only is it DISGUSTING and awful to see a mouse in your apartment, I was also taken aback by how brazen it was.  Like, not even a little scared of me.  This is quite concerning because I'm known for my ability to make grown men weep.  It's a skill. 

Hey, mouse: I'm out of the house for 14 hours a day.  You can do whatever the hell you want during those hours.  Bring a friend over.  Watch some TV.  Hang out in the dishrack, which seems to be your favorite place for some reason.  If I don't see it, then it's not happening as far as I'm concerned. But when you interrupt my breakfast, I have to do something.  Like cover you up with a bowl, slide a magazine under it, and then throw you right out the window like a mob boss or Suge Knight.

You little exoskeleton-less creep.  You forced me to murder you.    

New life motto: don't trust anything without an exoskeleton.  They will almost certainly force you to commit a crime. 

So, what do you do when you've got a mouse in your house, besides FREAK out and complain about it to anyone who will listen?  Because you KNOW that just because I threw one mouse out of the window like a serial killer doesn't mean that the problem is gone.  

I've told everyone about the mouse, like I have just purchased a new puppy and it has consumed my personal life.

"I can't go out for drinks. Gotta get home to my mouse!" I'll say.

This weekend, I texted a friend and told her that I was "drinking beers with the mouse."

People have told me to put out peanut butter because it's sticky and they can't just grab it from the trap. That all sounds reasonable, but guess what I'm not gonna do? GO GROCERY SHOPPING FOR A MOUSE.

I don't eat peanut butter, so I don't have it in my house. I'm not going to make a special trip to the store to buy peanut butter for an unwanted house guest. That is the definition of crazy.

I know it's an old building in New York City and that I'll never totally get rid of them.  That's why they call it "Pest Control" and not "Pest Get Rid of Forever," but I need to come up with ways to keep these dbags at bay.

Advice I've gotten:

My boss: Steel wool in all of the holes
My father: Stop being such a drama queen
Co-worker: Mint oil
My landlord: Deal with it yourself and stop calling us
My father (again): Name it and pretend your life is a Disney musical
Friend: Glue traps

So now I'm obsessed (ala Nathan Lane in Mousehunt). I've put out bait and traps. I've scoured my apartment for every hole or crack and stuffed in steel wool (my baseboards currently look like they're growing hair). I've doused the place in mint oil. I've taken to sitting on the couch in silence, listening for the pitter patter of rodent feet (or, as they say in The Night Before Christmas, "stirring").

One thing I will refuse to do, however, is put out glue traps. Imagine: you're walking along, and all of a sudden, you're stuck. Like, really stuck. You can't get unstuck. But you're not dead. And the glue's not gonna kill you. So you'll just sit there and die of starvation. Now, I'm not a hippie animal rights douchebag, but that is pretty fucking cruel. Snap their necks is what I say! I've always been very deliberate.

Look: at the end of the day, all I want to do is eat dinner, have a vodka tonic, and watch Designing Women in peace (Season 2 on Netflix, bitchez). Is that so much to ask? 

What would Julia Sugarbaker do?