Man Versus Mouse, Abridged Edition

My first encounter with a mouse in my house happened when I was looking for a change purse. It was one of those old, “squeeze it open” kind of non-recyclable plastic ovals that kids used to store coins. Thinking it might have fallen out of my pocket, I searched under every bed, chair, and couch in our New Jersey residence. A logical assumption for a nine-year-old.

Finally, in the living room, I saw something under a chair. I reached — and stopped. My brain told me that the purse was orange, and this was a dark brown…and had a tail. I went into the kitchen and told my mother, who sighed and said “Leave it alone until your father gets home.” A few hours later, he moved the chair, revealing a tiny, deceased rodent. He got gardening gloves and a trash bag and disposed of the creature.

On Saturday morning, we went to the hardware store and bought two traps, setting them up in the garage and behind the refrigerator (pushing it into place with a tape measure where it could be seen). Sure enough, by Monday morning, a second mouse had been trapped and was subsequently thrown out.

The next chapter occurred nearly 30 years later, in my first apartment as a married man. One morning, there were an inordinate amount of crumbs in the bread basket on the kitchen counter. Plus a plastic bag of bagels looked like it had been chewed. My (now) ex-wife…