Friday, October 8, 2010

The cliche mouse in the house

I hate mice.
I don't mind cockroaches (unless the are crawling on me). I don't mind lizards (only the poo poo they leave behind everywhere). I don't mind frogs (unless I step on them). I don't mind mosquitoes (only how itchy their bites are). I don't mind ants (unless they ransack my sugar bowl). I don't even mind termites (although the many tears I've shed in Zambia because of them would make you think otherwise). But, I hate mice. Hate them. Hate, hate, hate. I especially hate the one that has made its way into my house.
It first showed up on the scene about a month and a half ago when 5 bags of "evidence beans" were locked up in the spare bedroom, next to the sitting room. (Someone tried to steal beans from the WFP warehouses. After recovering the beans, they decided to keep them, a.k.a. the 'evidence beans', in our guesthouse until the investigation is complete. That could be a while. TIA.)
I kept seeing little flashes of black moving at high speeds across the floor in my bedroom, in the sitting room, in the kitchen. I blamed my mefloquine hallucinations for a while, but then, one day, there it was under my desk staring back at me. Probably laughing. And probably with a belly full of dried beans. I chased it, not like I could a) catch it or b) have the stomach to smash it with my shoe. But I had no choice. After a few days I got to know its routine. It would start the evening running from the kitchen, behind the TV stand and into the 'evidence bean' room. After a delicious meal it would run back across the living room, down the hall and into my room, the bathroom and sometimes the spare rooms. The thing about this new house guest is that he is too damn fast to catch, too damn small to smash, and, as I am learning now, too damn smart to eat poison. I went to a few shops looking for rat poison, but turns out the most popular way to catch them around here is with rat glue. When I picture catching mice with glue, I picture the things feet stuck to a piece of paper as its body wobbles around trying to free itself. Then I picture myself trying to take the mouse stuck on paper outside for disposal. I've done a lot of gross things, but I don't want to do that. I don't want to be near it. I don't want to see it. And I really don't want to touch it. Maybe Ive become a "softee." Im ok with that.
So after deciding against the glue, I went to the pharmacy. They handed me 2 packs of yellow capsules and told me "this stuff is for humans, but it also works on mice." Luckily it works differently on us than on mice. It's actually for a cold. Or so they tell me- it didn't come with any inserts.
That night I created a wonderful concoction of rice, beans, and poison. I felt like an evil scientist and it was great. I laid out 3 piles of temptation in different areas of the house.
Turns out the lizards love it. The mouse just laughs at it. The next morning we found out that instead of eating the concoction, the mouse ate through my housemates book bag to get to some peanut butter.
Ok, so it prefers peanut butter to rice and beans. NO PROBLEM. The next nights concoction consisted of, you guessed it, PB and P.
Peanut Butter and Poison.
Turns out cockroaches love it. The mouse just laughed at it.
I won't give up. I will kill this thing. I just have to figure out how.
I'm taking suggestions.

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