The Mouse From Hell

Once upon a time, I was a neat freak. The cleanliness of my room was directly proportional to the cleanliness of my life, so to speak. Everything was clean and organized.

I don't know what happened.

I think it really started after I got married. For the first time, I had another person's stuff to deal with. I wasn't allowed to organize it how I want and put it where I wanted it--I had to take Josh's wishes into account. Josh and I had gotten full-time jobs teaching, and we were busy. Josh was working 60 and 70 hour weeks, and on the rare occasion that his free time wasn't sucked into the black hole that was speech and debate, we just relaxed together. So, I've just gotten into the habit of not putting things away when I take them out. I don't do it on purpose, I just do it absentmindedly. And it has certainly not gotten to the point where things are disgusting around here--I am still a bit of a germaphobe--but it has gotten to the point where things seem so far gone (and precisely because I am a germaphobe--I can't be satisfied with cleaning down the kitchen counter, it must also be scrubbed and bleached, so a simple task like cleaning a counter becomes a lot more work intensive) that I feel too overwhelmed to actually get started, and so things just stay the way they are. Another significant hurdle in my road back to organization is...the mouse.

Oh God, the mouse. About a week and a day ago, Josh told me he saw a little mouse scurry from under the fridge to under the stove. Naturally, I was appalled, disgusted, and mortified. After fortifying myself in my bedroom and sitting paralyzed in fear for about six hours (I am not afraid of mice; I am afraid of a mouse living in my kitchen and the bubonic plague, which I think are reasonable concerns), I ventured out into the kitchen. No food had been gotten into, and I've yet to see any traces of a mouse beyond Josh informing me of its existence. We called the mouse people, and they fixed a hole in the wall behind the stove and set some traps. And everything returned to normal. Until a few nights ago. Josh and I were watching something scary on TV, and then something actually horrifying happened in real life: the mousetrap went off, fortunately in a corner of the room that was not visible from where I was sitting on the couch. After running screaming into the bedroom (that was the best I could do to help the situation--I tried), I was informed that the mouse--which hadn't died in the trap--had passed on with a little assistance from my husband. Three pairs of laytex gloves, 5 layers of paper towels, and a LOT of Lysol later (all my suggestions), Josh had disposed of the creature.

Hopefully it was the same mouse that we saw a week ago and the matter is done with, but there is no way to tell, obviously, because they all look the same. Its possible, I suppose, because in the two months I've lived here we have never seen even the slightest sign of mice, not anywhere, so perhaps it was just the one mouse and he got stuck in our building. Josh thinks it was a recon mouse--as he calls it--scouting for potential sources of food before bringing his family (they are social creatures) and making our kitchen his permanent home. I think that mice are not capable of the forethought necessary to do recon work and that I will be living in fear of stepping on one for some time. Josh said the mouse was cute, and it broke his heart to murder it. I've never actually seen the mouse (if it weren't for the THWACK of the mousetrap, I might even question its existence), but I am certain that if I had--and if I had even an ounce of the necessary courage--I would have zero qualms doing what needs to be done. If I die in Boston, it will be from falling down the Porter Square MBTA escalator, not from the bubonic plague.

So that is why I have not posted recently. It is because I have had absolutely no appetite whatsoever. I've been living off of fruit snacks and Chewy bars for the last week because I'm too disgusted to venture into my kitchen until this mouse problem has been 100% dealt with. I attribute a significant portion of my inability to get things in my house back the way I like it to this mouse, by the way. What is the point of organizing my workspace when I know there could be a mouse setting up shop in the wall behind my desk? What is the point of working towards perfect cleanliness when there might be a mouse somewhere making it all for nothing?

The only good that has come out of all this was that the economy-size box of fruit snacks was on sale last I went to the store, so I will have something to feed myself until the mouse man comes back and makes things safe again. Until then, I will be getting very adept at Halo.