The Mice, The Dead Ones

I suppose I should consider myself lucky, I'm not the type to shudder and squeal at a rat running from trash bag to trash bag as I walk down the street. Live rats scurrying around subway tracks,to me, a distraction while waiting for the train. My first apartment was overrun (ok, not overrun, but inhabited by several) mice and they were, kind of, cute. But put any sort of dead or captured rodent in front of me and I will LOSE.MY.MIND. And you think dead or captured would be the favorable position for such a creature, consider me an animal rights activist I guess, I'd much rather them be able to run away from me. I think my phobia of dead mice stems from an experience in my first apartment. As I mentioned, we had a bit of a mouse problem. At night I would unmake my bed, of course, and throw one of my giant heavy pillows onto the floor. Come the next morning I would make up my bed and replace said heavy pillow. One morning, call it, The Last Morning of the Heavy Pillow, I picked it up to uncover, get ready, a completely flattened mouse underneath. And I mean, a perfectly, arms and legs sprawled out, his tongue probably extended, dead flat mouse... Panic. Sheer panic. I ran around the apartment screaming, at 7 in the morning, waking both of my roommates and forcing them to dispose of the tiny dead animal. I couldn't handle it. Who could really? And can you imagine the timing of that incident? I just happened to throw my pillow down right as the little thing ran under it and then I happened to step down on the pillow right afterward accounting for the utter flatness of it. Nightmares. Needless to say, the pillow was bagged and trashed. Here's another example... the other day I walked into a "place that will go unnamed", to the sight of, and I tear up even as I type this, a mouse stuck to a sticky trap...alive. Hyperventilation. I started crying and I couldn't breathe. And to make matters worse, a person, if you can even call someone as inhumane a person, proceeded to pick up the trap with the mouse on it and taunt me with it. I haven't spoken to the "person" since. Who does that? Really? Also, who uses the STICKY TRAPS? I mean, c'mon, at least get the snap ones so no one has to suffer as much. Jeez. Listen, I know I'm going to have to see mice and rats all the time, this is New York City, but I hope, for my sake, the only ones I'll see in the future, will be happily scurrying along their merry way. And also I wanted to share these pictures that were in the Best of '09 Issue of New York Magazine. They made me laugh. I found them online at Gothamist.








And, yeah, that rat is dead. But the story is pretty funny. Click that Gothamist link to read it.