I'm not exactly okay.
Posted: Sat May 14, 2022 3:13 am
I killed a mouse just now.
In the last few weeks, I've occasionally seen a small dark shadow fly across my living room floor.
When I would try to inspect, I would find nothing at all. I was beginning to think maybe I just drink too much (I do.)
Maybe I was hallucinating. Somewhere between the maddening sound of that awful train horn (I swear it's gotten much louder in the last few years) and the fucking birds who keep trying to build a nest in the eaves of my porch, not to mention the endlessly creeping ivy determined to engulf the back corner of my house, I thought "maybe I'm just losing my shit, maybe the little dark blur racing across the floor in my peripheral vision isn't even real."
But deep inside I knew better. I've dealt with mice, and rats before. So just now, when I saw that bit of darkness by the door, saw it dive behind the crate full of old magazines, I grabbed the crate, slid it away from the wall, and there it was, the cute little furry abomination with its big, sad, black eyes in its tiny little head, looking terrified and alone, out in the open, whiskers twitching. Not a hallucination after all. So I went to find my claw hammer..
As I dug through my mess of tools by the couch on the other side of the room, the adorable little bastard ran along the wall seeking cover in the corner, somewhere behind the milk crate upon which my computer printer sits. I found my hammer, grabbed it, then went over to the corner of the room where I had seen him run to. I figured by then he might have found some hole in the floor to escape in. I sorta hoped he had. But no, as I snatched away the milk crate with the printer on it, there he was..
I looked at the helpless little creature for a second, hating what I was about to do. Then I carefully aimed for the head.,,
On the first blow I crushed half his skull. One big round black eye dangled from the wreckage. He struggled to get away, flailing his arms and feet to move, but it was clear that he wasn't going to go far, so I swung again. At this point I tried to pick him up with the claw end of the hammer, but his whole body was twitching, trying in vain to somehow stay alive. So I hit him one last time, completely flattening his already destroyed skull, and he was still. There's a mess of blood on the floor where he died. More blood splattered on the wall. Blood on the hammer I killed him with, and more blood on the dustpan that I scooped him into, before flipping him off into the front yard, where I suppose I'll obliterate his rotting corpse with the lawnmower some time later.
I don't like killing; in fact I hate it. But I also hate cleaning little pellets of feces off of my kitchen counter tops, or replacing electrical wires gnawed apart by rodents. (I'm told that the plastic coating has traces of soy that they think is food) I wish I could live in peace with the little bastards, but they shit everywhere, tear shit up, and can even cause actual fire hazards. I've used humane traps in the past, dropping them off in the woods behind the dumpster where I work, but the results have been hit or miss, and meantime they breed new little bastards for me to deal with. Do I deserve to live any more than they do? Probably not, but I have a hammer, and they don't.
In the last few weeks, I've occasionally seen a small dark shadow fly across my living room floor.
When I would try to inspect, I would find nothing at all. I was beginning to think maybe I just drink too much (I do.)
Maybe I was hallucinating. Somewhere between the maddening sound of that awful train horn (I swear it's gotten much louder in the last few years) and the fucking birds who keep trying to build a nest in the eaves of my porch, not to mention the endlessly creeping ivy determined to engulf the back corner of my house, I thought "maybe I'm just losing my shit, maybe the little dark blur racing across the floor in my peripheral vision isn't even real."
But deep inside I knew better. I've dealt with mice, and rats before. So just now, when I saw that bit of darkness by the door, saw it dive behind the crate full of old magazines, I grabbed the crate, slid it away from the wall, and there it was, the cute little furry abomination with its big, sad, black eyes in its tiny little head, looking terrified and alone, out in the open, whiskers twitching. Not a hallucination after all. So I went to find my claw hammer..
As I dug through my mess of tools by the couch on the other side of the room, the adorable little bastard ran along the wall seeking cover in the corner, somewhere behind the milk crate upon which my computer printer sits. I found my hammer, grabbed it, then went over to the corner of the room where I had seen him run to. I figured by then he might have found some hole in the floor to escape in. I sorta hoped he had. But no, as I snatched away the milk crate with the printer on it, there he was..
I looked at the helpless little creature for a second, hating what I was about to do. Then I carefully aimed for the head.,,
On the first blow I crushed half his skull. One big round black eye dangled from the wreckage. He struggled to get away, flailing his arms and feet to move, but it was clear that he wasn't going to go far, so I swung again. At this point I tried to pick him up with the claw end of the hammer, but his whole body was twitching, trying in vain to somehow stay alive. So I hit him one last time, completely flattening his already destroyed skull, and he was still. There's a mess of blood on the floor where he died. More blood splattered on the wall. Blood on the hammer I killed him with, and more blood on the dustpan that I scooped him into, before flipping him off into the front yard, where I suppose I'll obliterate his rotting corpse with the lawnmower some time later.
I don't like killing; in fact I hate it. But I also hate cleaning little pellets of feces off of my kitchen counter tops, or replacing electrical wires gnawed apart by rodents. (I'm told that the plastic coating has traces of soy that they think is food) I wish I could live in peace with the little bastards, but they shit everywhere, tear shit up, and can even cause actual fire hazards. I've used humane traps in the past, dropping them off in the woods behind the dumpster where I work, but the results have been hit or miss, and meantime they breed new little bastards for me to deal with. Do I deserve to live any more than they do? Probably not, but I have a hammer, and they don't.