Operation: Terminate the Mouse

I follow Missbhavens’ advice and I jingle my keys as I slowly open the door to my apartment. I want to let the mouse that has been terrorizing me for the majority of the week know: “I’m home, bitch! Time to go hide.” The apartment is dark, so I turn on the lights. I look at the 2 spring traps askance. No mouse in Spring Trap #1. No mouse in Spring Trap #2. I check the four boxes of poison. None have been touched. I check yesterday’s 4 freshly-laid glue traps. No mouse in Glue Trap #1. No mouse in Glue Trap #2 or #3. No mouse in Glue Tra ... Wait a minute. Where is Glue Trap #4? I panic. Glue Trap #4 was right over there in the corner behind the bookshelf. But, it’s not there anymore. My heart races. “OMG!!! Somewhere in my apartment, a mouse is crawling around with a glue trap stuck to its hairy back!!!” I slam the apartment’s door and run down the stairs to get my neighbor. Bless his heart, he comes upstairs right away to help me out. He enters the apartment and I stand guard by the doorway. He looks around and then says, “Oh my god!” “What?!?!?!” I practically scream. “What is it?!?!?!” “I can’t believe you laid out 2 spring traps, 4 glue traps AND poison.” “Ha ha, funny. Do you see the mouse?” He does. Apparently, the mouse got stuck on Glue Trap #4. Then, it dragged its partially glued self and the trap under the refrigerator. When my neighbor bends down to collect the mouse, it starts squealing a high-pitched eek, eek, eek eek!! I run out of the apartment, slam the door shut, and scream a blood-curdling scream. Maybe the mouse and I aren’t so different from each other after all. We’re both really scared and, well, each of us wishes that the other would just fucking die and leave the other alone. Lucky for me, I won this round. But as every gangster knows, kill a homey and the homey’s crew will come after you. So, just in case this gangster has a crew, I left the 2 spring traps, 4 boxes of poison and the remaining 3 glue traps baited. And, Monday’s appointment with the exterminator is still on. Let this be a lesson to all the mice of New York City: never, I repeat, never fuck with a Chicagoan. And, especially not one with a really cool downstairs neighbor who isn’t afraid of mice. :-) BREAK ALERT: Have a good weekend; see you again on Monday.