Sleepless Night

A woman with a pest problem.

I cannot sleep at night. I have been having difficulty sleeping because of a mouse in my kitchen making noise. I hate mice. I always have and I always will. I am not afraid of them. I simply hate them. They are small and dirty. They are full of poisons and illness.

 

They are spineless and gross. I just hate them. But killing them seemed unfair as they do have the right to live. Keeping them on a trap seemed cruel. I liken having a mouse on a trap, even for a few minutes to locking a human being up in a prison cell for hours without the ability to move freely.

 

Still, I really hate mice. For the last three weeks or so, I have been tortured by the sporadic presence of a lone mouse that runs about in my kitchen. The fact that the furry creature is in my house doesn't bother me, however hearing it as it runs across my floor annoys me. I simply hate it.

 

My ears are incredibly sensitive. When I am asleep, I can hear a baby cry two miles away. While that is obviously an exaggeration, I am still a light sleeper. The pitter patter of its little feet brought me to the brink of utter meltdown on many an occasion. It’s maddening! Sometimes I think that the mouse is there laughing at my weakness. My own often exhausted and paranoid mind is too much of a softie to ever kill it.

 

The mouse must be aware that I value its life and therefore it is not necessary to be in fear of death by my hand. Still, I want it gone. Day after day, night after night, I’d tell myself that I am going to finally get the furry creature and rid myself of this mind altering torture. I need sleep. I need sleep bad. And this mouse isn't helping at all.

 

One night after several unsuccessful hours of trying to sleep, I decided to put an end to my misery and finally silence (not kill) that damned rodent. I set up a little trap using an old technique my mother told me about. I put down a trap in the middle of the kitchen floor with a dab of peanut butter in the middle to draw the rodent.

 

My plan was to get the mouse that I affectionately and disturbingly named Danni, onto the trap and then take him a few blocks away and let him go. I want it out of my house once and for all. I set the trap just before I went to bed.

 

The next morning, I expected to hear the cries of a mouse trapped and afraid for his life not knowing that my goal was not to kill him but to release him back into the public where he can find a better home. I walked down the stairs to the kitchen in my robe and slippers. I didn't hear the familiar sounds that I had unfortunately grown accustomed too.

 

There was silence. I was confused. For nearly a month, that rodent taunted me with its movement and now it was quiet. I walked into the kitchen and saw the mouse lying in the middle of the trap. Danni was dead. I was devastated.

 

Looking at this mouse that was once so alive lying stiff on a trap hurt my heart. I didn't want it to die but it had. It suffered as well. The peanut butter was just out of reach and he couldn’t get to it. I did the very thing I said I wouldn't. I made him suffer. It hurt my heart. I felt that I owed him something. We did spend nearly a month in my house together playing a spirited game of “cat and mouse.”

 

So I went to the pet store that afternoon and asked for a special request. "Ok we can do special requests." Randy Dennis, the store manager said. "What kind of exotic animal are you looking for? I reached into my box and pulled out the dead remains of my little friend Danni and said: "I want two of these, please. It’s too quiet at night and I'm having difficulty sleeping."

 

Author's Note

Express what you feel, I always do. www.JLwonline.com

Reviews

[Brandon Meyers]

I liked this one. Not only was it grammatically tight, but it had a good ending. I wasn't sure what to expect, but was happily surprised by your decision to have her buy more mice:)