little bitty girl

What does one do with a mouse in the house after it's been caught? That has been the question of the weekend. I guess the dip in the temperature caused the little critters to come out of their hiding places, as many reports have been made of various mouse trappings and killings. The most common suggestion has been killing by drowning, letting it out just to die in the elements. A friend, who is an environmentalist and animal lover, said that using a trap is the kindest way because it usually kills them instantly. Well, we did none of the above. And before anyone protests too much or sends PETA up our asses, I just wanted to say that we are mouse catching virgins and truly had no idea what to do.

So, later on that Friday after the mouse managed to escape from the clutches of Mindy, she was back to her hunting grounds. I was Instant Messaging Stefan when all of a sudden I heard an "urf! urf". I looked down and Mindy had caught the mouse again and was trying to give her mummy "a present." I leapt from my chair, grabbed the phone, jumped onto the couch and proceeded to call Stefan. Mindy was following me with the mouse, looking extremely confused.

After 5 minutes of frantic screaming from my part, Stefan, my knight in shining armour, rushed home to deal with the situation. He managed to capture the thing in a bucket and give Mindy "positive reinforcement" as he said my screaming makes her confused on whether she should catch mice or not. We debated about how to get rid of it. My suggestion was just to take it outside and let it die as it looked pretty beat up from Mindy's "playing" with it.

Stefan decided to throw it out of the window. Yes, you heard right. Mr. Genius decided that if the mouse lived to tell a tale after a five story fall, it proved its tenacity for life and if it didn't, then it would die instantly. I left him to deal with the gruesome task while I gave Mindy some treats. Ten minutes later, when he was still not back in the apartment, I got a little worried. I went into the hallway and there was Stef with his head out the window. He saw me and gave a really remorseful look.

Turns out, mice don't die instantly when you throw them out of five story windows. Stef had flung the bucket into the air overlooking the parking lot. The mouse did some sort of weird Matrix hover and proceeded to land on the roof of someone's Jeep. The mouse looked like it was dead but then, to his amazement, he noticed the mouse get up and try to crawl but it looked like it had a broken leg. Finally, after a couple of attempts, it gave up the good fight, lay on its back, quivered a couple of times and laid still.

So the conclusion of the story is that the mouse died an awesome death, the person with the Jeep is going to be very confused when he/she finds some poor mouse that decided to commit suicide on their car and Stef and I are both going to hell.

We were told the poor mouse wouldn't have lived regardless because, after a cat has been batting it between its paws, it's pretty much dead but that knowledge has yet to sooth our guilty consciences.