A couple months ago I had a mouse meltdown. I had nightmares thinking they were crawling over my bedsheets, ripping open bags of food in my kitchen and basically taking over my apartment. I sometimes slept with my iPod playing through the night so that my heart wouldn't wildly speed up at the sound of any slight noise (be it the rustle of leaves outside the window or the wooden floors creaking). When day broke, I usually ran out the door, finding things to do as long as I could avoid being at home for fear of hearing anything at all (much less see a rodent dart here and there). Any type of sound could set off an anxiety attack, sending waves of nausea from head to toe.
Dan has seen one mouse and caught two mice in my apartment. The first time he saw one was when I was in the bathroom. He heard munching and decided to inspect the noise only to find that a tiny creature had gnawed through the layers of Saran wrap covering honey cereal bars I had made and left out on the kitchen counter. The second time, I was in the bathroom again. I came out and Dan said: "Ok, now don't freak out. It's going to be ok. " "What happened? Oh no! Tell me now!" I remember saying, feeling alarmed though his facial expression was completely calm. I don't recall his reply, but I do remember that he hugged me as I panicked and was thanking god that afternoon that he was there. A mouse had stepped into a glue trap on the counter and was going nuts trying to break loose with no success (you can bet it was screaming to set itself free). He took the trap, peered inside and said: "Aw, he's kind of cute! It's a baby one." So we trekked over to Central Park with the mouse-still stuck to the trap-in a plastic bag. As Dan held the bag with the squeaking mouse, I held a bottle of extra virgin olive oil. It was quite a debacle once we reached a grassy area at the park because releasing the mouse was not like scraping scrambled eggs from a frying pan on to a plate. Dan hunched over some grass and with a tiny branch, tried to gently nudge the mouse off the sticky contraption without killing it. I managed to dump fancy olive oil over the poor thing in an attempt to loosen the glue without squealing myself. After some time and lots of patience and determination on Dan's part, the ever-so-oily mouse scampered away into the bushes. Victory!
But it was only a week later when a second mouse was caught in a trap that replaced the one that imprisoned the "Central Park" mouse. This one was not so lucky as it was the morning Dan and I had to leave for our Bermuda cruise. There was no time to walk to the park, much less oil it and pry the critter off the trap . Setting our consciences aside and using logical reasoning (e.g. the cruise will leave without us, we'll miss the train to Jersey, packing won't be complete), this mouse was escorted to the garbage can in the basement. Eeks.
I was terrified of going home after our trip because Dan would be gone for a couple months in Asia. Who was going to come save me when something popped up in my apartment uninvited? For days, I left the "circus" of pots and pans that Dan constructed on top of the stove because before he left, he had a hunch the squeakers were finding their way into my apartment through the stove or under the sink. The "circus" was a rather complex tower of pots and pans held down with weights like a tea kettle filled full with water and layer upon layer of heavy kitchenware. To this day, I have a less-intense variation of it.
There was one night, I laid in bed drenched in sweat, drifting in and out of sleep. Something inside me cracked. Rationality, logic, composure...they all left me. I was all by my lonesome thinking that I smelled something dead and rotting in my apartment. Was it my imagination? A mouse body gone rancid under the bed? Possibly so. But I was too afraid to check and by no means had the guts to inspect the darkness beneath. At this time, I had left on the intro song to the movie '8 Below' on my laptop just so there'd be some sort of music to mask any other sounds. It ran for 9 hours straight. As I laid in bed sweating, unmoving and getting sick of the intro music, I couldn't think of a person I could call to put out the fire from my psychosis. Dan? DAMN...he's not even in the country. Hy? Chris? No way. It was 4 a.m. in N.Y. Dad? Lisa? Way too late in California and what could they do? What could I do? Be stuck in bed like dead-weight that's what.
It finally hit 7 a.m., so I text messaged Hy something along the lines of 'I needed help.' And some time around 8 a.m., she, my savior, arrived at the apartment to witness the me who I can only guess appeared to have not gotten a wink of sleep for years. All I remember was her telling me to take a nap and knowing that she was there seemed to have erased the worry that if I closed my eyes, a mouse would run all over my bedspread. What did she do while I slept? She actually scrubbed down my kitchen counter, including the dish-drying rack and the rice cooker, and inspected every mouse trap to make sure there was no mouse and nothing dead. It was the best 20 minutes of sleep I had gotten since I discovered mice were invading my space.
After being convinced that I should not have to live in constant agony over whether there were furry guests invading my tiny tiny tiny (for those who have seen it or slept in it know that this is an understatement) apartment, I sent a letter to the owner of the apartment complex telling him of my mouse troubles. Not only did he have "his men" come at 8 a.m. the next business day, but he had them remove my kitchen counters completely. What did they find? The dumbass who last did the plumbing had left HUGE gapping holes under the sink and behind the stove. It took over 4 hours to close those massive gaps. Two hours of thunder-lightning sounds as they cut up sheets of heavy aluminum, 1 hour of thick nails being driven into the aluminum against old old wood, and 1 hour of trying to slam my drawers back into place in line with the counter-tops. Fun fun morning but well worth it because it was a step towards doing something about my mice problem instead of cowering in utter fear and helplessness. It was trying to dispel the source of my anxiety...hence, looking fear I suppose indirectly in the face. Bonus: I was so psyched about getting those holes patched that I even asked for a new paint job in the bathroom, which was completed the same week!
Lesson of the month: When you need help, just ask for it.
Dan has seen one mouse and caught two mice in my apartment. The first time he saw one was when I was in the bathroom. He heard munching and decided to inspect the noise only to find that a tiny creature had gnawed through the layers of Saran wrap covering honey cereal bars I had made and left out on the kitchen counter. The second time, I was in the bathroom again. I came out and Dan said: "Ok, now don't freak out. It's going to be ok. " "What happened? Oh no! Tell me now!" I remember saying, feeling alarmed though his facial expression was completely calm. I don't recall his reply, but I do remember that he hugged me as I panicked and was thanking god that afternoon that he was there. A mouse had stepped into a glue trap on the counter and was going nuts trying to break loose with no success (you can bet it was screaming to set itself free). He took the trap, peered inside and said: "Aw, he's kind of cute! It's a baby one." So we trekked over to Central Park with the mouse-still stuck to the trap-in a plastic bag. As Dan held the bag with the squeaking mouse, I held a bottle of extra virgin olive oil. It was quite a debacle once we reached a grassy area at the park because releasing the mouse was not like scraping scrambled eggs from a frying pan on to a plate. Dan hunched over some grass and with a tiny branch, tried to gently nudge the mouse off the sticky contraption without killing it. I managed to dump fancy olive oil over the poor thing in an attempt to loosen the glue without squealing myself. After some time and lots of patience and determination on Dan's part, the ever-so-oily mouse scampered away into the bushes. Victory!
But it was only a week later when a second mouse was caught in a trap that replaced the one that imprisoned the "Central Park" mouse. This one was not so lucky as it was the morning Dan and I had to leave for our Bermuda cruise. There was no time to walk to the park, much less oil it and pry the critter off the trap . Setting our consciences aside and using logical reasoning (e.g. the cruise will leave without us, we'll miss the train to Jersey, packing won't be complete), this mouse was escorted to the garbage can in the basement. Eeks.
I was terrified of going home after our trip because Dan would be gone for a couple months in Asia. Who was going to come save me when something popped up in my apartment uninvited? For days, I left the "circus" of pots and pans that Dan constructed on top of the stove because before he left, he had a hunch the squeakers were finding their way into my apartment through the stove or under the sink. The "circus" was a rather complex tower of pots and pans held down with weights like a tea kettle filled full with water and layer upon layer of heavy kitchenware. To this day, I have a less-intense variation of it.
There was one night, I laid in bed drenched in sweat, drifting in and out of sleep. Something inside me cracked. Rationality, logic, composure...they all left me. I was all by my lonesome thinking that I smelled something dead and rotting in my apartment. Was it my imagination? A mouse body gone rancid under the bed? Possibly so. But I was too afraid to check and by no means had the guts to inspect the darkness beneath. At this time, I had left on the intro song to the movie '8 Below' on my laptop just so there'd be some sort of music to mask any other sounds. It ran for 9 hours straight. As I laid in bed sweating, unmoving and getting sick of the intro music, I couldn't think of a person I could call to put out the fire from my psychosis. Dan? DAMN...he's not even in the country. Hy? Chris? No way. It was 4 a.m. in N.Y. Dad? Lisa? Way too late in California and what could they do? What could I do? Be stuck in bed like dead-weight that's what.
It finally hit 7 a.m., so I text messaged Hy something along the lines of 'I needed help.' And some time around 8 a.m., she, my savior, arrived at the apartment to witness the me who I can only guess appeared to have not gotten a wink of sleep for years. All I remember was her telling me to take a nap and knowing that she was there seemed to have erased the worry that if I closed my eyes, a mouse would run all over my bedspread. What did she do while I slept? She actually scrubbed down my kitchen counter, including the dish-drying rack and the rice cooker, and inspected every mouse trap to make sure there was no mouse and nothing dead. It was the best 20 minutes of sleep I had gotten since I discovered mice were invading my space.
After being convinced that I should not have to live in constant agony over whether there were furry guests invading my tiny tiny tiny (for those who have seen it or slept in it know that this is an understatement) apartment, I sent a letter to the owner of the apartment complex telling him of my mouse troubles. Not only did he have "his men" come at 8 a.m. the next business day, but he had them remove my kitchen counters completely. What did they find? The dumbass who last did the plumbing had left HUGE gapping holes under the sink and behind the stove. It took over 4 hours to close those massive gaps. Two hours of thunder-lightning sounds as they cut up sheets of heavy aluminum, 1 hour of thick nails being driven into the aluminum against old old wood, and 1 hour of trying to slam my drawers back into place in line with the counter-tops. Fun fun morning but well worth it because it was a step towards doing something about my mice problem instead of cowering in utter fear and helplessness. It was trying to dispel the source of my anxiety...hence, looking fear I suppose indirectly in the face. Bonus: I was so psyched about getting those holes patched that I even asked for a new paint job in the bathroom, which was completed the same week!
Lesson of the month: When you need help, just ask for it.
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