A dead mouse destroys my self-image

I recently disposed of a body for the first time. Before you get worked up, it was the body of a dead mouse. (Nothing suspicious here, I swear!)

This is not my first incident with a mouse, but this is my first time dealing with a dead one. My husband and I rent part of a massive old home that has been converted into four apartments. When we first moved here and brought our three cats with us, we discovered that at least one wild creature had taken up residence in the months when the apartment was vacant. That creature was a mouse. My oldest cat, Arwen, caught it. She used to be an outdoor cat, so it was no surprise that she’s the hunter of the three. (Our other two cats–who are littermates–don’t have her experience. They’re also small, adorable little cuddleballs who just love everything. Arwen is more discriminating in her tastes and can be a bit haughty.) After Arwen walked through the hallway with the mouse in her mouth–to show us what she’d done, of course–she dropped it under the kitchen table and then plopped down to rest, looking completely and utterly pleased with herself.

The mouse appeared to be dead, but it had us fooled. After a few seconds, it stopped playing dead. It flipped over and ran to the living room. We spent a long night trying to catch it. (When we had it cornered at one point, we grabbed our cats and threw them at it.) Eventually, we trapped it under a bowl, put a piece of paperboard under the bowl, and then released the mouse outside.

Is it better to deal with a dead mouse or an alive one? On the one hand, the still-alive mouse crawled all over our floors (disgusting!) and we had a hell of a time trapping it. It was a very unpleasant experience. On the other hand…

Holy fuck. Dead things are DISGUSTING.

So, fast forward to present day. I was home alone and I heard a loud “thump” sound. It was similar to the sound Arwen makes when jumping off a counter, but it was louder and more intense. The sound was followed by Arwen meowing strangely. I exited my room to search for her–just to make sure she was okay–and when I turned the corner to the living room, I saw Arwen sitting next to a dead mouse. Definitely dead. This time Arwen didn’t let the mouse fool her.

I like to think of myself as a tough woman who can handle anything. When I was kid, I would call for my dad whenever there was a bug so he could kill it. As an adult, I started doing that with my husband, but I quickly learned that he doesn’t kill bugs. He’s an even better vegetarian than I am; he adopts a strict “trap and release” approach to most bugs (mosquitoes and gnats excluded). This is a headache (trapping and releasing is time-consuming and annoying), so I eventually began killing the damn bugs myself just so they could be gone and I could move on with my life. (There are exceptions. Sometimes I am feeling nice and will trap and release.) Killing bugs is a source of dissonance for me; I’m a vegetarian because I don’t think animals should be killed… Why draw the line at harmless bugs? (But that’s a whole other topic.) Anyway, killing bugs contributes to my sense of myself as tough, strong, and self-sufficient. (There are many more–and much more important–reasons I see myself this way, but killing bugs is the most relevant one for this particular story.)

Well, the dead mouse completed shattered my image of myself as a tough woman. I squealed and jumped around in disgust and horror. It was just so fucking gross! Plus, I didn’t want the mouse to die. It’s an animal and I value animal life, so it was very sad to see it dead. Truthfully, I couldn’t look at it. I was so sad, disgusted, disturbed, and horrified, and whenever I looked at it I would reflexively jump away and make “ugh gross ahh” noises.

This meant it took me about 15 minutes to dispose of the body simply because I would turn away as soon as I glanced directly at it, so I was constantly re-steeling myself to the task of getting close to it. I used a plastic container, a flattened cereal box, a magazine, a cardboard box, and a plastic bag to get rid of the mouse. I needed as many layers between me and that mouse as possible. The layers were added one at a time, and when I’d scoot the mouse’s body from one layer to the next, I’d immediately pull away in disgust as soon as I’d see or feel it’s little, sad, and disgusting dead body move.

It was awful.

But what kind of dumb mouse enters a house with three cats in it? I love evolution, but I did not enjoy being involved in this instance of natural selection.