Musophobia

The first time I remember seeing a mouse was on the cover of the first book I learned how to read, Santa Mouse. That mouse looked nice, and I liked him because he wasn't really furry or angular and always wore a red suit and hat. I could dig a mouse that wore clothes. Oh, and he had a barely-visible tail and walked properly on two legs, which was very human of him. My dad bought this book for me and, I learned later, had the goal in mind that I'd read it before I was four. I reached his goal way ahead of schedule and learned early something about pride. My dad had A Baby Who Can Read.

The second time I saw a mouse my dad murdered it in his hands. His house was infested. Each night filled itself with pittering and pattering. The sheep I'd try to count would even run away from the mice. The murder was vivid and strange, like the nightmares you get when you're sick. I was in bed reading some bigger book to dad and one of the mice in his closet wouldn't stop squealing. When I wouldn't buy dad's poetic line--that perhaps that nice mouse was trying to read a book to her father--he sighed and ran to "take care of it." For a reason I can't remember, perhaps to make me understand the truth about mice, that they are small and inconsequential, that they cannot harm anyone, or maybe because he'd finished up the six pack, my dad dangled the mouse a few feet in front of my face. I screamed. The mouse screamed. My dad said "Goddammit!" and the mouse disappeared into his hands and there was silence. Strangulation? Smothering? I still don't know the exact cause of death, but my dad's hand was the penultimate coffin. Then, the toilet, his pink toothpick tail the last of him to go down.

Twenty five years later I've discovered my worst fears are true. It hasn't been cockroach poop on the kitchen counter all these weeks, something as easily dealt with as the crumpling of looseleaf. I turned on the light in the kitchen and prepared to take care of that sinkful of dishes and the mouse--no shit--stopped in his place on the counter, blinked once, and ran under the cutting board that I laid across the stovetop grates to dry (unbeknownst to me, creating the perfect tent for a mouse to settle under). Minutes later when I stopped screaming I realized I was in the dining room now, plates still in hand, and Brock was patting me on the head like the scared little girl I felt I was and saying all would be well soon. We just need some good traps. Meanwhile I was thinking we need a better fortified house.

I can anticipate an appropriate response to this: you live in the woods, you're surrounded by big and small creatures, many of which can actually hurt you, so grow up and get over it. Trust me, I'm trying. But so much of every day is tied to that moment with my father, one of a handful of memories that I don't need Proust's madeleine to recall. It's always there, that toothpick tail a swinging pendulum in my subconscious.

Which leads me to this question: can I murder a mouse? At the risk of sounding like a stereotypical liberal who brakes for every squirrel in the road, I have to balk at the idea. It's possible I'm scared of all the others I've come across in this life because of how that first one dies. I basically ratted it out (ew: bad pun). If I hadn't done that, then my dad wouldn't have searched and swung and destroyed, and I probably wouldn't have this irrational fear. In other words it's all my fault, and now I've got to kill this mouse to rid myself of the fear of the first (either that or I have to kill my father...clearly I've forgotten Freud).

Several weeks ago my friend Jessica found a baby mouse dying in the woods behind her house and has been feeding it some mouse-formula from a tiny mouse-bottle ever since. I am not Jessica. I can let a mouse starve. But can I set up a device to crush, torture, dash it out of its life? Not sure, but I do know it's got to be gone from my house or I won't be able to eat. As it is I'm not looking forward to my coffee and English muffin breakfast tomorrow morning. I may have to skip it. Brooke's breakfast-less birthday. Some creative thinking must be done to solve this problem, and I'm not disregarding hypnosis as a possibility. Though I'm dubious about the effect of a swinging pendulum watch just feet in front of my face.