thehefner | the mouse (Reply)

God, I never thought this icon would be so appropriate for such a horrible, miserable reason.

So it was a slow day at the comic store today. Very few customers, which was great when someone like

fragmentedsky drops in to hang out and ply me with Lebanese pastries. We talk for, what, an hour or something, during which time we get one, maybe two customers.

Anyway, I cast my eyes toward the center of the store, where the new and recent issues are shelved, and I see a bit of white paper something on the floor. Trash, I assume. But then, an instant later, I see something else. At second thought, I think, no, no, that's just a piece of tissue paper or something, that's what's making that movement.

But I was right the first time. It was a tiny little gray mouse.

Turns out the white thing was a sticky mouse trap. And the mouse's tail is stuck.

Now, we don't have any mouse traps, much less any mice that I've ever seen in all my years. Best as I can figure, somebody dropped the trap with with stuck mouse in the store. Why?! I have no fucking CLUE!!!

Well, I'm already very concerned, wanting to release the mouse and put it outside. But I'm afraid to personally, y'know, touch it, and I try to ease it into a bag or something... shit, I don't even know what I'm trying to do... and as I've thought about this all day since, over and over and over again, I keep thinking how it was just the tail that was stuck. How I could have just hung it upside down so it dangled, where it couldn't have bitten me, and unstuck the tail. And it would have been free. Oh sure, there are alley cats outside who'd probably get it, or any of the other natural cruelties of the world, but still... it would have been free.

But it ran from me, of course. With no other shelter, of course, it rant right into the trap. I tried to get it loose outside, leaving

fragmentedsky to watch the store (you better not have stolen all my Joss Whedon X-Men trades!), and head out to the backyard. And I'm trying to pull its legs free, but... you already know where this is going.

Ironically, the only thing I was able to free was the tail.

Sigh.

And of course, the poor thing is terrified, and after much of my attempts to tear its whole foot from the glue, it bites me. A good, sustained clamp on my left index finger. No broken skin, far as I can tell. I washed it repeatedly afterward and doused both hands in Purell. But I tell you, I felt that bite all day. I can still kinda feel it, hinting away whenever I brush that finger against something.

I hate those traps. The thought of starving to death, terrifying out of your brain... even for vermin, that's just... it's just horrible. And I hated, I hated, that I knew what I had to do. Poor fucking thing.

I came back into the store with tears mounting. Probably the only reason I didn't start sobbing was due solely to

fragmentedsky's amazing abilities to distract me with geekery and goofiness, for which I was greatly appreciative.

But the whole rest of my day was ruined. And what I just can't wrap my brains around is how the hell it happened in the first place. How did it get there? Did someone leave it? If so, why? Did they not have the guts to do what needed to be done, and left it to me?

I don't have anything meaningful or illumination with which I can wrap this post. That's what's so maddening about the whole thing. It's a miserable, horrible little bit of cruelty and sadness, and I just don't quite get how it happened.