2002-08-23 - 11:39 p.m.

Death In The Night

Yesterday was a lot of fun. It was a day colored by the fact I'd had very little sleep the night before. And the reason I’d gotten very little sleep was something upsetting that had happened during the night.

It was very late, maybe three A.M. when I was awakened by a loud, repetitive noise. As soon as I could focus on it, it sounded like someone crinkling up paper noisily. The first thought in my bleary brain: one of the hamsters has gotten out. Great.

I went out into the living room, and the first thing I determined was that the noise was coming from the waste paper basket in the living room. The primary source of the noise was a McDonald's bag that was there. What used to be in that bag? Why SAUSAGE BUSCUIT, of course!

My second logical leap: it's not a hamster, it's a mouse. I can't really see the hammies climbing into a waste bin after a McDonald's bag. It wouldn't be the dumbest thing they'd ever done, though.

There wasn't much else in the bin. Very gingerly, I pulled out some of the other garbage. I didn't see anything. Hmmm... I took a peek in the McDonald's bag and didn't see anything either. Wait... I spotted what looked like a very dirty piece of string - the mouse's tail.

Well, this wasn't good. This was the first time I'd seen any mice, or any traces of them, outside of the kitchen. It also meant that the mouse had to crawl up over the couch in front of the TV to get into the garbage can. Ewwww! That's where we sit!

Although, it was a little reassuring that hamsters aren't the only creatures silly enough to get trapped that way.

So - what do I do now? This mouse has gotta go. Putting him outside was no good - he'd just come right back in again. He had to die. But how? Smack the McDonald's bag with a hammer?

The garbage bin was pretty tall and it was water-tight. I'd just fill it with water and let him drown.

I took the bin into the kitchen and turned on the hot water full blast. When the mouse heard that he went bananas. He started trying to jump up the sides of the waste basket and almost succeeded in getting out. Those little guys can jump!

I took the spray gun from the sink and started spraying it in the waste bin. The hot water here is very hot, and very quickly the mouse stopped struggling - either drowned or scalded to death.

A very creepy and disturbing experience. This was a lot different than just hearing a SNAP! and finding a dead mouse in a trap. I had a very hard time getting to sleep after that, in fact after a while I just gave up. I got out of bed and sat in front of my computer.

Well, one thing's for sure - the mice are back. So what am I going to do about it?