Mice in the Hice

More than one mouse now! I just tried to feed Boo and noticed a funny looking mouse-sized hole at the bottom of his dog food bag and then noticed a funny looking mouse squeezing out of this hole! A cry escaped me that Laura later described as "the highest pitched scream you've ever made," quickly followed by several "It's IN THE BAG! IT'S IN THE BAG!!!!"s and a dash out the door. Did I mention I had my pants pulled down to my ankles? Yes, I did. So picture kibbles flying, a dog bowl clattering on the floor, my fullest moon illuminating the hallway, and me ululating like a keening widow about a little gray guy that poked his head out of a bag.

The mouse trapped itself in a space between the sink and the tub, and here Laura was my real hero/butch. The hero/butch act involved a command ("Hand me my gloves") and some no nonsense barricading (Boo's water bowl and the spray bottle of Fantastik and me a couple feet behind clutching my copy of Steiner/Alston's International Human Rights, 1st Ed., since it was the biggest flexible book I could find that might afford 1) quick crushing capability or 2) better barricading than the concave water bowl). As she reached for the mouse, it lept away from her begloved hand and right into the water bowl with a little *splish." Laura scooped it out and held it while I rummaged indecisively but furiously through our tupperware cabinet looking for something suitably disposable/gross. Now we have a little wet guy with a rat-like tail in a mushu tofu takeout container that's capped off and weighted down by the Essential Foucault Reader (it's never seen better use). I'm to take him to Central Park so he can roam the mean city streets, where roving gangs of toughs will cheat him of his meager savings until he gets hard enough to join them and prey on the apartment castaways that come after him.

Actually, I've been told that mice have a two-mile return range, and in order to be truly rid of this guy (henceforth "Julius"), I'd have to take him to the Chuchifritos on 116th and Third Avenue or the Museum of Natural History. I don't think I'll do either - it's cold, and I ain't biking with a motherfucking mouse on my back - so what Laura (who has sharply castigated me for shaking the tupperware to see what the mouse will do, saying "I don't see how you could be so cruel") doesn't know is that after she goes to bed, I'm going to stab steak knives into the tupperware until little Julius squeaks, "Et tu, Man-te?" and collapses into his toga. Then I will flush him down the toilet, chuck the gristly tupperware into the airshaft, and pretend like none of it ever happened.