The Mouse War

A couple years ago I began to write down the events of the Mouse War, which horrifically unfolded between January and August of 2012. It was previously posted on my blog, but I decided to take it all down, re-edit it, and re-release it as a mini series interspersed between my posts about Nepal. Despite the return of my rodent inspired night terrors, I'm glad I revisited the story. It's a doozy. 

Disclaimer,

I would like to address any future claims that my actions in this War may appear overly cruel, sadistic even. Although I did bottle months of rodent fury, and I do describe my role in the war as if I'm Charles fucking Manson, in reality I am not a cruel person. I have, however, written and will continue to write these events not from the view of an impartial bystander, but from that of a semi-paranoid moderately rational, middle class hillbilly, who was driven Mad from months of constant, close quarters rodent exposure. At any point in the war when I captured a mouse, I tried to dispose of it in a quick and merciful fashion. Unfortunately, some of these disposals were rather clumsy, and some of the mice may have suffered very slightly more than necessary. I want to emphasize that this was not a result of my sadism, merely the fact that I’m fucking terrible at vermin disposal. Each scenario happened under different, unexpected circumstances and each mouse death was the result of my best attempt at mercy. In order to avoid too many death threats from PETA, I will describe my thought process in each mouse disposal and illustrate how and why I thought it would be effective and at least relatively painless… Amidst the meat of chaos of course. While this strange and long winded disclaimer may seem unnecessary, as the full absurdity of the Mouse War begins to unfold, it will begin to make more sense. If you're in PETA stop reading now and save me the fucking grief.

Thank You. 

        In the year after I stopped college and worked from home, I decided to move into a separate building on our property, which once housed chickens. It was a chicken coop. Fortunately, my Mom had renovated one section and turned it into a livable space/guest house. Once I was home from college, I knew right away I'd need the extra, conveniently detached space, so I emptied and cleaned out the coop, painted the walls, wired some Internet, and put in a huge couch and tv. It was and still is badass. There were, however, slight drawbacks. Aside from the severe mold, crumbling walls, leaky roof and tree branch growing through one window, there was also a thriving community of shockingly arrogant, disease ridden devil mice. In a battle that would ultimately span nearly seven months, the mice would employ a miniature and evil cunning to engage me in a hellish, sanity testing death match. These rodents even made an unprecedented, cross species allegiance with a mysterious Floridian stripper, who would make a shocking, yet failed attempt to save one mouse antagonizer from the clutches of a slow, bleach induced demise. Ultimately though, after months of bloody struggle, I would prevail over the vermin scum and their stripper ally. Here is what happened in the true, non-embellished story of the Mouse War.

 It all began when the Chicken Coop, where I had lived a few short weeks, started to accrue various specks and crumbs of food. This was due to either my slovenly eating habits, or malnourished Virginia hillbilly gypsies breaking in to snack while I wasn’t there, most likely the former. The first sighting both frightened and disturbed me. It was a small grey blur barely noticeable speeding along the intersection of the floor and wall. I knew it may have been cause for concern, but I wasn't particularly surprised considering the previous tenants were a bunch of filthy chickens. At first, I ignored the rodents appearance, hoping for both his sake and mine that he wouldn’t show his face again. I should have torched the Coop then and there. Little did I know I’d have to learn my lesson the hard way in an uphill battle against a malicious little devil.

       I regret that I didn't involve Agent Orange after seeing the first suspicious black crumb. I discovered it as I did my weekly clean up of the coop. And yes, Michael J. Fox eating Campbell's off a paint mixer would spill less than I, but I was at least diligent about keeping a minimal level cleanliness. When I took off all of the cushions to vacuum underneath,   noticed a curious number of little black crumbs. Upon closer inspection I realized they weren’t crumbs at all but little pellets of shit. Mouse shit. And even worse, the highest concentration of it had accumulated under the cushion where my pillow usually lie. Oblivious, I'd been sleeping with my head eight inches from a pile of shit. My face was essentially in a god damned rat toilet. I was infuriated. A dirty invader had defiled my sacred Coop. After remembering some Buddhist advice that “To lose patience is to lose the battle,” I regained my composure, repressed the teeth clenching rage, vacuumed up the shit and went inside my house to get some mouse poison. Game on motherfucker. If only I had known this was the beginning of an engagement that would lead to the gradual, merciless backslide of my sanity through the Seven Levels of Hell.

        And so it began. I continued to drop food, and I continued to find shit. Should I have been held partially responsible? Should I simply have stopped throwing food at my face, getting it plastered all over the walls and floor and incessantly enticing the rodent population? Nah. Old, slovenly habits die-hard; and living up to my pledge to never negotiate with terrorists of any species, there was no fucking way I’d adjust my crumb spilling ways because of some soulless, disease-spreading devil creatures. Naturally, I could've just been a slightly cleaner person and easily contributed to saving the life of one of God's innocent, yet filthy creations, but I didn't want to get AIDS from my pillow toilet and I ranked its death as less of an inconvenience than my tidiness.