Mouse Capers

When you are through changing, you are through. Bruce Barton

There is, in my view, very little more humbling than a mouse. For such a tiny creature, they sure can pack a mighty scare.

Last week, our dishwasher sprung a leak in the outtake hose. C.C. pulled the machine out, unscrewed hoses and cords and drove around the city looking for the right replacement. Amidst expletives and scraped arms and fingers, he reassembled the whole thing, plugged it in and voila! A working dishwasher.

Until Saturday morning when it sprung a leak in the hose, again.

Same procedure, this time with a couple of extra trips to the hardware store due to the wrong size of hosing and two days of dishwasher parts spread out across the kitchen floor. Yesterday, after several hours of maneuvering, the machine is once again assembled, and operational.

This morning, while making coffee, I thought I heard water dripping in the cupboard between the sink and the dishwasher. I opened the door to check and a tiny black figure scurried out of view. I screamed. Slammed the door shut and raced into the bedroom where a sleeping C.C. lay oblivious to the drama unfolding in the kitchen. Ellie watched from her mat at the foot of the bed, impervious to the seriousness of the situation.

"Eeek!" I screamed. "We have a mouse."

C.C. raised his head from the pillow. Ellie, took the opportunity to jump up on the bed and lie down.

Both of them eyed me and did nothing.

"Aren't you going to get up and look?" I asked C.C.

"Did he scurry away when you screamed?"

"Yes."

"Then they'll be nothing to see."

Ellie continued to eye me in the hopes I wouldn't make her get down. "You!" I said pointing my finger at her. "You're supposed to be the mouser. Go get it."

She looked at me with disdain. "I am a dog. Not a cat," she seemed to say, her face as smug as a Buddha sitting on top of a mountain.

When C.C. had first pulled out the dishwasher he suggested there could be a mouse in the cupboard. I had vehemently insisted it was impossible.

This morning, the impossible is evidently possible and I am humbled.

And now I have a dilemma. I don't like mice. I don't like killing anything. And nothing is going to change about the mouse in my cupboard until I change my attitude -- except of course that I will not be opening that cupboard until something changes about the mouse in my cupboard!

It is, only a mouse. But that mouse has a purpose in this universe. It has a reason for being here -- perhaps to teach me that all creatures, big and small, need care. Personally, I would prefer if it were living its purpose outside my kitchen. Somewhere in the back yard, perhaps, or on the other side of the fence... in my neighbours yard!

In the interim, I'm going to have to give my mind a shake. Loosen up my thinking on how to take care of the mouse in the cupboard.

I can't kill it. C.C. said he's going to buy a mousetrap today. I'll not enjoy my kitchen if we kill it. I'll always know it was there and died while there.

But.... mice carry disease and what if that mouse has some weird strain of Swine flu that will kill all of us? What if that mice is actually a descendant of Popo Gigio, the rarest of mice, a talking mouse with a sense of humour and a six figure income? What if he is the bread winner of his family and only came into my kitchen because the recessionary times have dwindled the supply of food in his world too and he's searching for sustenance the only way he can -- he did look kind of skinny in the two seconds I saw him flash before my eyes!

Oh my. What to do? What to do?

Change my attitude. Change my thinking. Change my glasses.

There are many ways to catch a mouse without killing it.

Or, I can just let it be and let C.C. take care of the whole situation so that I can pretend I had nothing to do with its death!

Or, I can dress Ellie up as a giant mouse stalking cat and put her to work.

Ahha! Now that might work...

No questions today. Just a lot of confusion of what to do with the mouse in the kitchen. What to do with my conscience and the realization that I can take myself rather seriously sometimes! But then, killing another creature is a serious situation. If everything I do causes a ripple effect, what kind of ripple am I sending out if I contribute to the untimely death of a tiny mouse.

Then again, if it were a mosquito would I experience the same angst?