To Be Writer's Journal 3: Mouse in the house

I went downstairs to the basement. On the left hand corner, hidden behind a white door, is the storage room. It is a dark room with concrete floors and shelves on the walls. You can see the wood that supports the house and the isolation material stuffed along the walls.

I opened the door to the storage room and I heard it. I felt the fear stream in my body like a hot substance. I knew what it was, and I wasn't afraid of it; but somehow, I wasn't ready for the encounter. There it was, squeaking and scratching the concrete floor with its little nails: a mouse.

It was stuck to this old trap, a little box like thing with sticky tape in it. I don't exactly know how that thing is supposed to work, probably with some other poison or trap. The poor thing was trying to pull the - for him - too heavy box with little success. I could see the fear in its eyes, it was in real panic. I just wanted to leave the room, I didn't know what to do with it. Desperately trying not to hear or see it, I took the stuff I needed and left the room. I was hoping that it would be less scared if I was gone and somehow sit there and wait till I figured out what to do.

My husband is a bit more practical than me. He said right away "we should kill him with a shovel". I saw the picture of him cutting the head off with the sharp edge of the shovel, blood spattering all over the floor. I wiped the horrid image from my sight and said that it was not an option. My husband thought the animal was suffering from some kind of poison but I knew the only suffering it had was psychological. That duck tape was not going to kill the mouse.

That day, I didn't go back to the basement again. I had a BBQ party going on and afterwards I went out to have some drinks with a friend. It was after I came home and went to bed that I remembered there was a mouse in the basement. There was no way for me to go downstairs and look in the middle of the night. I think the basement is a creepy place even without a mouse in it. I tried to figure out how I could pick up the animal without being bitten or scratched and throw it outside, away from the house. I fell asleep dreaming about big gloves, rabies shots and squeaking mice.

Next morning, there was no mouse. It finally got escaped from the sticky tape and ran for its life. The question is, where did it go? I ideally think it went out of the house to meet its loving family and friends, and tells them all not ever, ever to come inside our house because of its dangers. I know that mice in real are far from being the little cute Tom and Gus from Cinderella and that they don't really care about me or their own family. They are dirty and can be dangerous for us.

Still I cherish life and I just cannot persuade myself to take a life of even a mouse, without trying to find another way to keep it alive and away from my loved ones. I know if I cannot find a solution, I will call the exterminator. Then beware mouse, leave my house or die!