phantom mice and others

I still remember the first time I realized I had roommates that didn't pay rent.

 

It was the early part of 2003, after a snowstorm so bad that it destroyed the roof of the B&O railroad museum's roundhouse. I was sitting at my dining table, reading, when I glimpsed something scurrying out of the corner of my eye.

 

My feet left the floor. My thoughts, however, went to my landlord. Mom had read a clause in my lease indicating that I would be responsible for any "vermin" in my apartment. So I called Don.

 

Don, in his characteristically pleasant and sing-songy voice, explained that rodents often moved in when it snowed because they had a hard time finding water and other necessities. He mentioned peanut butter would be good bait for the traps he'd leave for me. Because, you see, "if you've seen Mickey, then Minnie's not far behind," he chirped. 

 

I suddenly had a vision of human-sized cartoon characters roaming around my house. What's more horrible --- an infestation of Disney legends, or brutally killing said beloved childhood figures?

 

Anyway, I put out the traps but never caught anything other than my own index finger, so I avoided the disposal issues that friend and frequent commenter Maliavale is dealing with.* But the problem continues, with the occasional mouse darting across the kitchen or jumping off the metal shelf unit where I keep snacks.

 

Now, I grew up in a city and have endured my share of roaches and other urban insects without too much distress, but I hate mice. My fear of rodents stems from an unshaking belief that these mammals harbor some sort of grudge against me --- for being large, for being loud, for past transgressions against their brethren**... what I'm saying is, these guys might have a justifiable desire to claw my eyes out and sink their perpetually growing incisor teeth into my soft flesh.

 

So super-early Christmas morning, when I got home after work and midnight mass and dinner and baking cookies, I had gotten into bed and was trying to fall asleep when I heard ... something. Something like little teeth and claws chewing on a paper bag in the kitchen -- perhaps the bag with the cookies I had brought back home after my impromptu baking party! I thought for a moment and decided I did not want to share my snacks.

 

I got up, turned on the light in my room and grabbed one of the Redhead's slippers. I stood in my bedroom doorway and looked across the hall at the kitchen. There was a bag near the stove, but had the mouse had chewed a hole in the bottom or had it had fallen/jumped in? If it had jumped in, maybe it would jump out if I went to pick up the bag.

 

I got an idea: as I lobbed the slipper at the bag I dived back onto my bed --- just in case the mouse decided to dart back into my room, for some reason. Then I waited there for a few moments on my hands and knees, listening. I heard something -- perhaps the sounds of teeth chewing on the cookie container, perhaps just a creak as I shifted my weight.

 

Another attack was in order. I put on an old pair of shoes, to protect my exposed toes, and hefted one of the Redhead's boots, still wrapped in a plastic bag from our trip to Boston. I threw it at the bag, again, and again ran to the bed.

 

That's when I remembered there were no cookies in the kitchen, actually --- I had left them in the trunk of my car.

*This is no longer true, as of 12:05 p.m. Dec. 27.

**addendum, not for the squeamish: In college, during the six-week-long experiment of my required neuro lab course, an indulgent partner allowed me to avoid contact with my rat for a really long time. For example, I didn't have to swing the rat in a circle*** to confuse it so it wouldn't freak out when we injected it with drugs before we put it in a little harness to measure how many times it turned right or left -- she took care of that.

 

It wasn't until after we had anesthetized them, and cut open their scalps, and used a dental drill to make a hole in their skulls, and injected a poison to make a lesion in its brain, and then stapled its scalp back together with something that looked like a binder clip, that I had to touch the rat.  

 

It lay there splayed out under a warming lamp, breathing softly, with the metal staple lifting the folds of skin like a mohawk on its head. After it came out of sedation the rat had to go back into its regular cage with access to water, but indulgent friend had to go to class. When it started to stir, I carried the plexiglass container into the locked room where the animals were kept and put it down on a table. I started talking to it, saying things more to reassure myself for the task at hand.

 

Then I heard something to my left, from the bank of cages. I turned and saw another rat, also stapled, poking its head ON TOP of one of the cages -- not inside, where it belonged. And that's when I ran away.

 

Flight instincts kicked in because I knew that that rat was coming to get me. Wouldn't you resent one of the humans who had literally messed with your head?

 

I ran to the student center and the library and the computer center, hunting for someone in my lab or who had taken it before, who could help me with my plight. Finally I found an Emily who was a TA and she said comforting things and came with me back to the lab and she put both rats away.

 

***addendum to the addendum: We didn't swing them by their tails; the lab partner would hold the rat so that it kept its front legs folded across its chest and would not be able to bite. It's not as mean as it sounds.

 

postscript: yes, I was the worst neuroscience major ever.

 

A final note: I really like cats. I don't like birds. I don't like the way they move.