Recently, I had an unwanted visitor appear in my bedroom. Mr. Mouse was the cutest, scared little thing and I had no desire to harm him, but I just didn’t want to be cleaning up after him or battling with him over the food in my pantry. There’s too much going on in my world to be having war inside my home, so I needed to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Through that process, I learned several valuable lessons…
- Every conflict has a peaceable solution, as long as you’re willing to keep searching for it. Honestly, in the past, I have tried “peaceable” means of capturing a mouse that have traumatized me. I tried one of those “sticky pads,” and suffice it to say, the experience was gory, at best. So, when I realized I had a mouse to deal with, I was a bit panicked about how I was going to resolve it. I spent an hour researching products, reading reviews, etc. I was looking for an effective and compassionate way to achieve the results I wanted and I wasn’t willing to give up until I found a resolution that met both of those requirements. Sometimes, though, the solution appears through surprising means, which led me to…
- Humor really can help every situation. After searching for products and reading through reviews, I came across a particular product that was inexpensive (surprising) yet still highly rated. That was cool. But what sold me on it was the fact that I laughed right out loud for five minutes straight with the top review on the product. The reviewer eloquently wrote a “complaint” against the product because it worked too good! The humor in it was what convinced me and I ordered it immediately. That led to…
- Sometimes you need to figure out a “make do” solution until all the players for the real solution arrive. When I ordered the “No Kill Mouse Trap,” they told me it wouldn’t arrive until Monday night, three nights away. In preparation for not being startled every single time Mr. Mouse scurried across my line of vision while dashing from beneath my bookshelves and around the corner into my closet – which was how I found him in the first place – I built a visual barrier so I could continue working at my desk all weekend without seeing him. He really wasn’t bugging me and he wasn’t going anywhere in my house, other than into my closet, which makes sense since because, oddly enough, my closet has a poorly sealed door which leads outside to rickety stairwell that ends in a field behind my building. Enter next lesson…
- What is safe for one can be a nuisance for another. Mr. Mouse was seeking refuge inside my closet for a number of reasons, I imagine. First, that field behind my house is a playland for the many cats at Cat Lady’s house that are more feral than domesticated. The only domestication to those cats is that they feed from one of the twelve dishes of food she sets about her front yard. Secondly, it has been bloody cold as of late; it is warm inside my closet, comparatively speaking, even though it hangs off the edge of the original exterior of the building and has no heating and probably no insulation. Still, it IS warmer than outside. However, his comfort in my closet was a nuisance to me and choosing to honor his life and lovingly escort him out of my house was also a nuisance that began with a lot of trauma. Next lesson…
- Something that first appears to be easy can actually be rather traumatizing. Setting up the trap was a piece of cake. Simply take it out of the box, put in the bait, and set the door to snap shut once Mr. Mouse entered. It was the “snaps shut” part that had me worried. See, I had PTSD over those old fashioned mousetraps where the cheese was placed on a spring-loaded trigger that would snap shut – LOUDLY! – and painfully trap the mouse. If it didn’t catch it correctly, the mouse would cry and cry until it was mercifully put out of its misery. I know this because I have witnessed it. So, from the moment I opened it, I was on edge about that SNAP! and that fear was only going to lessen, I believed, after I had caught Mr. Mouse and the whole ordeal was complete. This led me to the next lesson…
- Sometimes, it is easier than you think it’s going to be. The trap arrived an entire day earlier than they had estimated. I set it up as soon as it came. I kept up the visible barrier so I wouldn’t see Mr. Mouse running toward the trap. I remained anxious all day, fearing that SNAP! and I kept writing. It was quiet all day and I was beginning to think I had been imagining Mr. Mouse because I didn’t hear him scurrying around behind my visible barrier – forgetting, of course, that I hadn’t heard him when I did see him. My yummy trap had gone unvisited for eight hours already, so when it was still empty as I went to bed at midnight, I thought, “Maybe he is gone forever.” I awoke the next morning, read through texts from my daughter who had written me while working the grave shift, and then messed around on Facebook. I had been awake for an hour and was still lying in bed when I heard a repetitive sound I couldn’t identify. For five minutes, I laid there, trying to figure it out. Then I remembered the trap. It hadn’t gone SNAP! while I was sleeping, startling me awake dramatically, so I figured it couldn’t be the trap. The scratching continued and I began panicking that Mr. Mouse was scratching at my walls or damaging my house. I sprung out of bed to discover… Mr. Mouse was inside the trap, scratching at its door! Lesson number seven on its way…
- When you give into believing the fear, it usually makes the situation worse. I had fully believed that I was going to be traumatized by the door snapping shut. Therefore, I was traumatized for the entire time! I didn’t even hear the door “snap shut” when it did, so I had spent a very long time freaking myself out for no reason. Which… that really IS how fear works. When we allow fear to run the show, the show is fearful and uncomfortable. Even though I had had good intentions of being loving to Mr. Mouse, I spent the entire time miserable myself. Enter next lesson…
- Choosing the “right way” is not always the easiest way. I know that using an inhumane trap would NOT have been the way to go for me and I suspect poison would have not been any easier, so choosing to trap Mr. Mouse lovingly was the best option for me. It was still hard for me, though, BECAUSE of my previous experiences with mice. Additionally, I live in the city. Humanely catching Mr. Mouse was one thing. Releasing him into the “wild” and away from people, cats, dogs, and houses was no simple task. Figuring out where to release him required some doing on my part, a fairly long drive at 7:00am, and a steep hike. Lesson number nine begins…
- The “right way,” while not being the easiest way, does not actually have to be all that hard. Once I got over myself and stopped fretting about where I was going to let Mr. Mouse run free, where he’d be safest, and where I wouldn’t be pissing off all the other humans, the inspiration came to me. By a very circuitous route that took me three times as long to arrive at than it did to come home from by the straight route, I ended up at one of the friendliest hikes on the northeastern point of the Salt Lake valley. I was surprised at how steep the hike was; I didn’t remember it being THAT steep, but when I arrived at the vista, I was also surprised at how short it was; I remembered it being much, much longer. Remembering how hard it was to open the compartment where the bait went and feeling concerned that I wouldn’t be able to open it to let the mouse out, I had a moment of panic. I set the trap down near some brush at the edge of the overlook, bent down, and struggled for about thirty seconds to get the door to rise. While balancing in an inelegant squatting position at an awkward angle above the trap, I had barely budged the door upward a quarter of an inch before Mr. Mouse darted away to safety, giving me room for lesson number 10…
- Situations that start out as a “problem” can turn into a blessing. He ran away so fast, I was surprised. He literally disappeared in the blink of an eye and I was left with a green plastic domed trap full of mouse feces and urine to deal with; small price to pay for rescuing an innocent creature. I smiled and straightened, realizing that the view from the vista – that I would have never seen that morning if it hadn’t been for Mr. Mouse – was breathtakingly glorious. On that twenty-degree morning, with brisk air blowing at my hair, I stared at the crystalline blue sky scattered with feathery white clouds and basked in the beauty. It was stunning and I was there to see it because of my choice to lovingly escort a rodent to the “wild.” Enter the next lesson…
- Your choices can have catastrophic results for others. My beloved called me as I was standing there, gawking at the gorgeous panorama before me. He listened to my adventure and then laughingly said, “Ang, in your loving attempt to ‘rescue’ Mr. Mouse, you may have just sentenced him to death by exposure to the below freezing temperatures or a dance with the many red tail foxes or snakes that live in those hills.” I gasped and lovingly pled with the Mouse Gods above, “I am trusting that since this human has decided to save this mouse’s life today, that the Mouse Gods will shine favorably upon him, too, and guide him as he finds his way to safety.” My beloved laughed and said, “I cherish your giving heart.” And his words reminded me of the last two ultimate lessons…
- What you give is your choice; what is done with what you give or what happens after you have given is not up to you, it is not your responsibility, and it has no reflection on you or your gift. What is important is that you choose love and choose to give, and you choose both with wild abandon. And…
- There is no such thing as giving too much or loving too much. It is what the world needs now. How we treat this planet and all the creatures that live upon it makes a difference to this planet and all the creatures that live upon it. Choose love.
If you’re curious about the trap I used and the review that sold it for me, you can go here. I receive nothing in return for you following this link (Trap Traps Mice In The Most Boring Way), other than the satisfaction that you’ll get to read the words that started this adventure.
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