No More Cheese Please

There was a dead mouse in the middle of the bathroom floor this morning. It lay on its side, legs and tail limply extending similarly to my dog’s mid afternoon nap position. I was startled when I saw it, even though I’ve been expecting it for days; the traps have been set since last Tuesday. I jumped and shrieked like the good housewife I am, and quickly closed the door. I left it there for David to take care of tomorrow. Disposing of dead mice was not something I wrote into my wedding vows, and since David said something about supporting me in all I do when he wrote his, I’ll defer to his words now.

It’s the first dead mice I’ve seen in nearly ten years. For a while, I was convinced that mice didn’t live in houses anymore. But ever since we've moved in to the new house, I've heard them scurrying around every night, eating Oscar's dog food, scratching the floor with their little claws, and running around in the walls doing who knows what to the insulation. I was annoyed, and afraid (in my teenaged years, I woke up to a mouse digging through my hair on my pillow--eww). We set the traps and I thought that was the end of it. I wouldn't have to think about mice again.

There is currently a dead mouse downstairs in the bathroom. It's laying on its side similar to how Oscar lays on his side now. I'm feeling guilty for the little mouse (and perhaps the five or so others that chose to die in more private quarters). The thing was basically harmless. In my childhood years, my brothers and I found baby mice in a drawer once. We kept them for a day and constructed obstacle courses for them and made them race until, well, until they died (probably from overhandling, lack of proper food, or something...God I'm a horrible mouse murderer).

Now should I expect a Blaura-sized mouse trap to be set for me somewhere? Should I forget the whole thing and except it? Should I make a shrine to all the mice ever killed with poison/traps/young children? A little of all three, I suppose. Are these the small things that really matter in life?