The Great Mouse War of 2014: A Battle of Nerves

This week was pretty exciting.

If you consider an ongoing and escalating battle with mice exciting that is.

Which I do, though it’s definitely not my favorite type of excitement.

You see, our room recently became home to a family of mice. When we spotted the first one last week, we thought he was kind of cute and affectionately named him Herbert. The cuteness factor soon became irrelevant though as he began making noisy night escapades, chewing a hole through my backpack, scaling a closet wall to reach Kathryn’s chocolate from England, and exploring the tissues and wrappers of our garbage can.

Let me tell you, waking up to sounds of chewing and gnawing from somewhere in your room is not a pleasant experience.  It may cause the following:

•       Futilely hoping your roommate is just hungry and is nibbling on a cookie or something but realizing the chewing is coming from different parts of the room
•       Fearfully screaming when a mouse jumps out of the garbage can as you get up to investigate the suspicious noises
•       Building various weaponry made mostly of hangers from the relative safety of your bed that can reach over long distances so you don’t have to risk walking on the floor again and having a mouse run over your foot
•       Waking up paranoid every hour or so because maybe there’s a mouse in your bed and if not, he’s probably coming for you with his wife and children
•  Having reoccurring nightmares about mice                                  squeaking helplessly as they die a painful death

It was a rough, anxious night.

After the traps our landlord had given us did nothing to minimize these mouse terrorist attacks, we decided to take matters into our own hands. Meaning we bought eight more mouse traps of varying varieties and set them up strategically in the different nooks and crannies in our room.

Meanwhile, Kathryn slept downstairs on the couch and I moved my mattress to Carol’s room and slept on her floor.

Yes, a few little mice forced us out of our home. Not really sure how that works.

Their seizure of our land did not last long though. The next day, Kathryn found Herbert guillotined on one of the snap traps. Admittedly, we both felt sorry for our antagonist and mourned briefly for his shortened life, but such were the costs of war.

His wife Geraldine had to step up after Herbert’s passing and though not as aggressive, noisy, or large as Herbert, she has been cunning and daring, outwitting all of our traps.

Yesterday I was doing homework on our floor when she raced by me to our back wall. Instantly on my feet (and Kathryn instantly on her bed), I thought now was the time to capture her and end the war once and for all (assuming they don’t have children that is…).  So Kathryn and I discussed mouse-catching tactics and rather than using our bare hands, we decided we could use mittens to grab her (they’re not as slippery as fish, right?). We thought she was hiding behind a big picture collage board and so while sporting our game faces, Kathryn stood gingerly on a chair and lifted the board so I could grab Geraldine.

Except as she lifted it up, we realized all our scheming and attempts for bravery were for naught; nothing stood behind the board except a very small hole. A hole which led to my closet, which Geraldine had no doubt used to escape the descending mitten mouse grab, which actually probably would have failed anyways.

We searched the closet we think is their home thereafter (and by that I mean Kathryn kneeled on a stool and searched the closet) and we were relieved that hundreds of mice didn’t swarm out and attack/devour us, but we also found no way to alleviate our plight.

I can’t figure out who the peasants are in this situation and who the nobility is. Because I kind of feel like the peasants calling on the tsar (a.k.a. our landlord) for protection against the abusive lords without a lot of success, leaving us no option but outright rebellion and further hunting of our mice. I’m okay being a peasant, but only when I win.

 And with one mouse-lord dead, I’m not sure who is winning this war. We did retake our territory and started sleeping in our room again, having removed all provisions and noise-making devices (except the mouse traps, which we hope don’t go off in the middle of the night), though our mouse paranoia persists. I’d like to believe that we peasants could win this time…

This wasn’t really inspiring or insightful (unless you too are enduring a great mouse hunt), but it covers most of the terror and passion I felt this week.

And here it goes again.

Let the games continue.