Some people smoke after work, some people kill things.

Saturday night I came home to a ridiculous ruckus in my kitchen. I had kind of been drinking and the house was pretty dirty so I thought for sure a possum was in the trash can. I stood in my bedroom doorway, which is right off the kitchen, in horror as I assumed some large critter had somehow made it's way into the house. I mean, the clamoring was pretty loud. I go to sleep.

Sunday, Roommate cleans house while I am out with my mother and sister. Good, maybe possum got scared of the clean and left from whence he came. She also tells me that Cat ran into the house the other day carrying unidentified object in mouth and when she dropped it in her food bowl, it scurried away. (Lucy, doing exactly NOT what cats are supposed to do with mice.) Well, good. At least now we know the ruckus is a mouse. But Good Lord, it sounds huge.

And as I am standing in kitchen, talking to roommate later that afternoon, noise ensues again. Frightened, Roommate and I both jump onto the counter.

"OMG. Mouse is stuck in trap! And dragging it around making a much more gigantic noise than it's size!" I realize.

Now this means that one of us is going to have to physically retrieve the trap, mouse and all, and dispose of it properly.

Crap.

We try the ole broom method but only succeed in pushing mouse closer to under the stove, not good.

"I'm going to have to actually grab the whole thing. Mouse and all," I decide. Gross.

So I reach under our counter where we have removed the base board and grab the trap, little mouse fighting with all it's might to pull away from me, one arm and leg stuck in trap, which might come undone any minute and mouse might run up my arm and into my mouth. I pull myself together and pull out the trap with mouse, Roommate diving out of the way in the same sheer terror I am feeling, and take it out to curbside trash can where I throw it in, still alive. Mission accomplished.

I wash up and head to work. All the while carrying around this terrible feeling that mouse is still alive in trash. Get home from work, eat some pasta and drink some wine with Roommate, still thinking about mouse.

Now at some point, I smell rotting watermelon rinds in the kitchen trash and have to take it out. This means I have to face the poor mouse again. (Dread). I can't just throw more trash on top of this little guy and hope he dies in a few hours. I should have beat him to death with the broom! I should have smashed him with a brick! Oh my gosh, I feel terrible! So I take him out, still attached to trap, and put him in the yard. Perhaps Lucy will finish what she started! But no, she noses the mouse in disgust and moves on with her life, rolling around in the dirt next to him, suffering, and panting pretty heavily and now, scared out of his mind from the cat encounter, doing this circular dance because one side of his body is stuck in the trap. And I'm just standing there with a flashlight watching this pitiful display.

Roommate and I discuss. "We can't leave him like this. What do we do!?"

Roommate: "Maybe we should drown him?"

Me: "Ew. Are you gonna hold him down?"

Roommate: "Maybe we could string up a little noose and hang him."

Me: "Oooo, yeah! We could hang it up in Other Roommate's Room. No! We're just getting weird now. "

Roommate: "Or we could nail him to a board."

Me: "Okay, now you're just talking about crucifying the mouse. We need Second Roommate, she will know what to do."

And so nothing really gets accomplished and we drink more wine.

Roommate #2 comes home and after hearing sad mouse story, berates me for letting this go on and decides, yes, we need to kill it and she decides what's best it to cut it's little head off and she will be the one to do it. And while I know R2 is a strong woman who could do the job, I cannot let her endure this, so I stand up to the plate.

I go into my room and retrieve my memorabilia Winchester hunting knife which has never left it's case until this point, grab the flashlight and go out into the yard, R2 following. Mouse, still alive, gives one last circle dance, I instruct R2 to look away, and with the most ease, and really almost like butter*, cut off mouse's head, mouse letting out the most awful squeaking noise one has ever heard. (I didn't hear anything.)

R2 claims mouse is still alive because his head is convulsing, but I assure her, he is dead, he just doesn't know it yet. And while I assure her by going over the laceration again, I end up kind of pushing the mouse into the earth, leaving only it's tail above ground, which is wagging out of control. ("Stop it, mouse, you're making such a scene.")

We go inside, leaving mouse for some wild animal to hopefully dispose of. I feel good about mouse's misery ending, yet I find that I am shaking vehemently. While I have killed wild animals before, it was always for some greater good, ie: to feed my family who most often couldn't afford brand name cereal. And all those times I shot a deer or rabbit or squirrel, I found that I was shaking afterward but I thought it was just excitement. Now, after I have killed mouse in such a horrifying fashion, I find that it was adrenaline.

Great.

*Come to find out, after speaking with my most trusted mouse resources, a mouse can be killed merely by stepping on it, one strike with a broom or rock of your choice, or simply by squeezing it's little bones in your hand. There really is no need to get your Winchester hunting knife you got for Christmas involved. Sicko.