The Mouse

A couple of years ago I had a mouse - a rodent, not a pet, someone coming out of the walls, and so I put down traps. Being soft of heart, I bought the no-harm type: a plastic box with a one-way lid. The idea is, the mouse crawls in, and he can't get out.

My boyfriend at the time kidded me about these.

"What are you going to do with a live mouse?"

"I don't know, set him free."

"Where," he asked. "Where?"

"The windowsill, maybe - no wait he'd crawl back in. Maybe the yard. Or over he fence, by the highway."

"A hawk will eat him."

That disturbed me. How could I be morally complicit in the life of another mammal? Never mind the fact that I do eat meat and am thus morally complicit in the industrialization of animal slaughter.

In any case, it wasn't an issue - until this week.

After I awoke, I made coffee and breakfast. While I started my morning routine, I heard a rustling, one that would not go away. At first I thought a mouse - a different mouse by now, since my scientist friend pointed out they only live about a year or so anyway - was in the trash, but then I realize the rustling was coming from underneath the wine shelves.

About where I have placed the trap - right in line with the flight pattern they (I must use plural now, given the updated life expectancy) use. Sure enough, there was a mouse in the trap, and he could not escape.

Now, what do I do?

I thought about releasing him on the windowsill. Too close. I settle on the yard. I was dressed and ready to leave anyway for my morning shop. I'd deposit him on the traffic island in the middle of the street in front of my building. But what to do with the trap?

My building super was out front. Pleased I had caught a mouse after two years of effort, I presented my find and asked what I should do with it.

"I'll take care of it," he said, and took the trap.

"Well, what are you going to do with it?"

"Oh, put it in the kom-pack-tor," he said in his Polish accent.

I was torn. There was a little more back and forth but what he said made sense. This was a rodent after all. And maybe he would survive, like Princess Leia and company in the bowels of the Death Star.

"Oh, OK. " I didn't want to carry the trap anyway, though my vision of a little mouse, roaming free on the exit ramp of the George Washington Bridge, was a little the worse for it.