I'm Dirty 2

My apartment's not as bad as it was before, I swear. We've been keeping it cleaner and sweeping now and then, but still, we had our second mouse emergency last night.

Turk, the little bastard, came trotting into the bedroom with a live mouse in his mouth.

"Oh my God!" J said.

"Oh my God!" I said.

We stood up and Turk dodged us, confused. He'd been expected celebration. He darted left and right, lowering his head every now and then like he was going to put the mouse down. "Nonono!" We shouted at him. We waved our arms. We didn't know what to do, but we knew we didn't want him to let that mouse go.

Eventually, we got Turk, Bean, and the mouse sealed off in the kitchen. We stood on the other side of the door, our hearts racing, trying to come up with a plan. The thing was alive. If we got it away from the cats, we would be dealing with a live mouse. Or, even worse, an injured mouse in need of our attention somehow.

"We'd have to kill it," I said. "If it's bleeding or broken or half-dead we can't just throw it away and let it die for six hours in the trash can. We have to whack it or something."

Neither J or I wanted to whack it.

We carefully let ourselves into the kitchen. Turk had the mouse trapped behind the garbage can. Bean was guarding the closet, the most likely escape route. The mouse dashed from one side of the can to the other, trying desperately to outmaneuver Turk.

"Well, I guess we've got to try and...get it."

Does this sound dumb? Are you laughing at us? I feel like this is something we should've known - how to deal with a mouse in the house. This is one of those ancient human problems, right? I mean, isn't this why we domesticated cats? To catch mice? But then again, mice are disease-ridden, right? Do we really want our cats eating them? And is it morally wrong to let our cats torture a mouse for hours? And what if it gets away and dies of its injuries and rots under our couch? And why, at the age of 26 and 33, did we not know how to handle this?

Our best guess was to take an empty, kitten-sized litter box left over from Turk's baby days, edge the cats away from the mouse, and try to capture it. It wasn't easy. The mouse was fleeing us now and kept darting under Turk, hiding in his chest while he sniffed frantically around, tail puffed and eyes wild, knowing the prey was close but not realizing how close.

Finally, I slammed the box down on the mouse, pinching Turk's paw and the mouse's tail in the process, but small price to pay. The rodent was contained. Now, the matter of what to do with it.

"I mean, I guess we could...what? Put it in a bag? Slam it with something or something?" The cats weaved through our legs with yellow eyes. They had been torturing the mouse, and now we were torturing them. Whatever we were going to do, we needed to do it now.

We decided to let the mouse go. I slid a piece of cardboard under the box and carried the trapped mouse upstairs to the roof. When I lifted the box, the mouse was still there, huddled in a ball on the cardboard, looking adorable and terrified. I waved my arm and the mouse squeaked, turned, and fled. It ran pretty fast, like any injuries it had might be minimal.

I know we made the wrong decision. Mice are pests. Humans kill them, and not out of any sadism or superiority. It's not healthy to live with mice. That's just how things are. And to release a mouse because you're too squeamish to kill it goes against the ancient collective knowledge of our species. But seeing that little tail disappear into the shadows made me feel better. Sure, the mouse might return. But there are nineteen other apartments in my building to chose from, most without cats. Next time, someone else'll get the opportunity to kill the damn thing.