Mouse Trap

As a child, I loved it when my mom would read me stories about cute, little mice wearing cute, little clothes who lived in hollowed out trees; their cute, little homes decorated with thread spools as tables and other cute, little things. To this day, I periodically use notecards featuring precious, smiling, little mice carrying strawberries on their backs or wearing dresses and horizontally striped knee socks. It's all so cute. However, it's another thing to find you have mice in your home. Larry and I recently discovered evidence that two mice (now dead, may they rest in peace) were sharing our condo with us and, despite the stories of my youth and my darling, little notepaper, I freaked out. I am tidy to the point of being fastidious (just ask my poor husband). I am not a collector of anything. I decorate in a plain and simple fashion with minimal "stuff" on display. I prefer gifts of experiences over gifts of things. Our larder is just about as empty as someone who is preparing to move -- I buy only what food we're going to eat that week. Despite the clean, spartan atmosphere, a mouse and spouse had found our home appealing. So, what to do? We hired a pest control service. We deep cleaned. We threw out. We recycled. We gave away.  And we plugged crevices outside that might be inviting to mice. And now we wait to see if we're the only tenants of our condo once again or if we still have "cute, little" friends trying to live rent-free with us.  Given that I don’t like to harm any living thing, my willingness to strike down our mice couple surprised – and somewhat saddened -- me.  I'll still reminisce about the mouse stories that Mom used to read to me and I'll likely still use notepaper featuring illustrations of anthropomorphic mice wearing human clothes, but I'll still hope that they stay outside or in their own home in the hollowed-out tree with the thread spool as their table.