Marty vs. Mouse

 

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a tiny black shape crawl into my closet. At first I thought I was crazy—was this a long-term side effect of the chemicals I consumed in high school?—but then I realized it looked very much like a rodent. So I slammed the closet door, trapping the vermin inside, and called my building's superintendent, who promised to bring poison soon.

"I trapped a rat in the closet," I said to my girlfriend.

"Oh my God," she said. "Are you sure it's a rat?"

"I don't know… I guess it might be a mouse."

"How can you not know the difference?"

"It's a creature with a tail in our closet… what does it matter?"

"If it's a mouse we can't kill it."

"Why can't we kill a mouse?"

"My best friend had a mouse as a pet when we were kids; they are cute innocent loving creatures… why do you want to murder it?"

"The last time I checked you weren't a vegetarian, baby… you eat innocent creatures for dinner every night, so why do you suddenly care about a rodent?"

"Don't call it a rodent; its name is Squeakers."

"Squeakers?” I sigh. “Are you fucking serious?"

The vermin commenced gnawing on the closet door.

"Can't you hear him?" my girlfriend asked. "Can't you hear Squeakers trying to free himself? He's suffering… he must be so scared in the dark, and just wants to be free… he just wants to live."

“It's a pest, and it carries disease. You shouldn’t call it Squeakers; you should call it Hantavirus because that's what it's shitting all over our apartment.” I put my arm around her soothingly. “It's very endearing that you have so much love in your heart—your soul is so kind and that's why I love you—but you have to be rough around the edges sometimes. Hantavirus the Mouse is going to die.”

"Can’t we help him get outside so he can enjoy his freedom and live and be happy?”

 

"Mice. Can't. Be. Happy. They. Are. Mice."

 

The superintendent arrived at our apartment with a bucket of rodenticide.

 

"It's in the closet," I explained. "Can you slip the poison under the door?"

 

"Isn't there some way we can get him in a box and let him go outside instead of murdering him?" my girlfriend asked for the millionth time.

 

"Jesus Christ...." I rolled my eyes. "If it will shut you the fuck up, we can try to trap it, but you will never, never complain about me leaving dishes in the sink again, all right?"

 

The superintendent seemed mystified and pissed off.

 

"You… don't… want to kill it?" he asked. "You want to let it run wild in here?"

 

"Women…" I flashed a weak, embarrassed smile, which the superintendent did not return; he merely started at me with disgust and pity.

 

"I have some traps," the super said. "They're sticky and smell good to the mouse, but it won’t kill it."

 

"And rip his little feet off?" my girlfriend gasped. "That's the saddest thing in the whole world! Why can’t we just help him get downstairs?”

 

"You could throw it down the garbage chute," the superintendent said, exhaustedly throwing up his hands.

 

“WHILE HE’S STILL ALIVE?” my girlfriend screamed.

 

“Do whatever you want…” The superintendent walked out the door. "Enjoy your pet."

 

“Were going to help you, Squeakers!” my girlfriend said to the rodent. “We're going to help you get back home to the outside world!"

 

For some reason I consented to this stupid plan, cursing myself for lacking the testicles to do what must be done. We erected a “humane trap” that consisted of two boards that would supposedly funnel the mouse into a trashcan. I opened the closet door—slowly, very slowly—and nothing emerged.

"Maybe it starved to death," I said, sounding excessively optimistic. "It was in there for a couple hours."

"SQUEAKERS!" my girlfriend wailed. "DON'T LISTEN TO HIM! YOU HAVE TO LIVE!"

Suddenly the tiny creature inched its way out of the darkness.

"It's so cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute," my girlfriend said.

Squeakers Hantavirus then ducked beneath the trashcan and headed straight for us with stunning speed.

"OH MY GOD!" my girlfriend shrieked, jumping atop our futon as if there were a King Cobra on the hardwood floor. "Oh my God it's loose it's LOOSE it's LOOSE in our APARTMENT it's running around catch it CATCH IT CATCH IT I was wrong you were right oh my God I'm sorry I'm sorry why didn't Squeakers go into the humane trap like a good mouse?"

Thirty-six hours later the mouse is still scurrying around our apartment, living in the shadows underneath my desk and gleefully shitting its diseases everywhere. In related news I have decided to find a homosexual conversion camp—not the Christian kind—because swimming in a river of a man’s semen couldn’t possibly be worse than drowning in an ocean of a woman's goddamned bullshit.