Dear mouse

An Open Letter to the Mouse Under My Kitchen Sink

I don't have a history of murderousness. My brother Ward and my friend Mike and I used to catch bees and submerge them in a bucket of motor oil in Mike's back yard, but that was about thirty years ago and I have been pretty clean ever since.

I was, however, riled to see the evidence of your presence dotted over the spare and well-organized expanse under my sink. My trash bag chewed and a dirty mess left behind: you have been like one of those spoiled rock stars who trashes his hotel room in an alcohol-induced rage. But you have not moved on to your next gig. You've encored, and returned for additional performances.

I sighed like a reluctant stalker when I set those traps for you a couple of weeks ago. Gluey-floored tents. Little hotels which you could not check out of voluntarily ("Come for the peanut butter, stay for the trapdoor service"). And poison. You've disdained both accommodations but have been chowing down on those little blue pellets which, I am told, dry out your insides. From defecation to dessication.

I haven't seen evidence of you for days now. The tents and the hotels remain unoccupied but the boxes of that delectable pastel blue poison have been consumed, consumed, consumed. Part of me is sorry that it has come to this, sorry that you are dead somewhere in the vicinity of my sink, your carcass perhaps dried to its basic remains like a longhorn's head on a Texan plain. The fussy, domestic part of me, though, is relieved that a messy interloper has been discouraged by whatever means, and I can now venture confidently into my kitchen, opening that cupboard door untrepidatiously.