I caught the mouse

Yesterday morning I caught the mouse. My mom and I really hadn't been too aggressive about catching it before. We had set out some wimpy glue traps and moved some of its food sources out of the bottom cupboard thinking that would give it incentive to move on. But enough is enough. I was seeing it nearly every night, I could sometimes hear it gnawing inside the kitchen cabinets, and I kept finding droppings in the kitchen. On Wednesday night I laid out two heavy-duty glue mousetraps, basically long plastic trays coated with about a quarter-inch of super-sticky glue.

The next morning the mouse got caught in the sticky mess. It was a tiny gray-brown thing. Its little legs were trapped in the goo and it was exhausting itself trying to get out. I grabbed the trap, a bottle of oil, and a pencil (to unstick it with) and went outside. I went down the block and crossed the street to where there is a huge expanse of desert. I poured some oil into the tray and proceeded to try to unstick the mouse. Its hind legs came free, then I tried its front ones. It wiggled like crazy and I grabbed it and tried to pull it free. At that point the mouse bit my finger, hard. But it was now free from the trap and I dropped it into the dirt. It stayed next to a bush for a few moments, its fur stained with oil, and that was the last I saw of it. I turned away, crossed the street again, and when I got to the house I immediately washed my finger.

My hand hasn't turned black and I am not foaming at the mouth so I don't think I got some deadly disease from the mouse bite. But poor mouse. It was so cute, cute enough to be a pet. But this was no pet mouse. I thought of how I'd seen the mouse previously, how it moved so smoothly and quietly in the night. It could get into the tiniest of spaces. Then I thought of it in the trap, having the crappiest day of its life so far, trying so hard to get out. And me dumping it out in the desert. At least I didn't kill it outright with poison or with a snap trap. I don't think I could have taken that. Did I effectively kill it by leaving it out in the desert? On this point I think ignorance is bliss.

So that's the end of the story with one mouse. There might be another one roaming around. Mom supposedly saw a fat mouse in the kitchen cupboard one morning and the one I trapped was definitely not fat, so the traps will stay out. I really hope I won't have to do this again, though. Bugs are one thing, I don't think twice about killing them, but causing harm to cute little rodents is not something I enjoy doing.