D Day for Charlie.

Our house was the scene of slaughter last night. I'm not proud of it, but it had to happen. After a summer of finding mouse poop in various places in the house (that we both dismissed as "disgusting" but "manageable"), we experienced an explosion in both mouse population as well as a heightened brash and bold attitude of said mice. We started finding poop on our kitchen table (that isn't near a wall and has metal legs), on our fireplace mantel (where mice made off with half of the robin egg shells I've been saving since we moved into our house), on Walker's high chair (how the hell?) ... we had also been wondering where a little hot pepper that had been in a glass went ... we soon realized that a mouse had gingerly reached in, took it, and took off (prompting Jon to remark 'I hope that little bastard explodes'). And this was all downstairs. Jon finally checked upstairs after he became convinced that it smelled like a dead mouse and, believe me, we know what that smells like. N-E-Way, upon cleaning up the corpse he realized that a mouse had gotten into his box of dork, I mean comic, books and nested. He also discovered that mice started eating THE BEDDING OFF THE GUEST BED. I mean, seriously, what the fucking fuck? I understand that when you live in the country you need to store food smartly to keep away ants and mice but do we have to strip all the beds of linens and not put anything in glasses or have a high chair for our child to eat in? Jon declared on Saturday, "That is IT. I'm going to kill them." I begged for leniency, "Just give me a day to research options other than mouse traps or poison. Please."

So I went to the Berkeley Parents Network, a site I go to frequently for parenting advice but that somewhat oddly came up in my google search of "humane mouse removal". I guess I was hoping for a solution something along the lines of spritzing lime juice in the corners while playing Black Sabbath to drive them out. I don't know. Just something that didn't involve breaking their necks.

When we lived in Portland, we had a resident mouse in our house. Well, it was probably more than one but we liked to think it was one. I decided to name it and asked Jon what we should call it . He thought for a minute and in a super funny voice, like a 7 year old, he said "Char-leeeeeee." So all mice became Charlie. When we didn't hear Charlie for awhile, I asked Jon where he thought Charlie was and he remarked, "He's on vacation. In the backyard." We gave Charlie a very rich life, with a family, vacations, job, a commute, and a to do list.

And then this happens -- the Berkeley Parents Network recommended killing them and killing them without mercy -- get traps! lace them with peanut butter! buy as many traps as you can and do it all in one fell swoop! I resigned myself to it. If Berkeley parents are condoning mouse murder, who am I to be a hold out? But I told Jon Sunday night "I don't want to know about it. I don't want to see the traps, I don't want to hear them go off, and I definitely don't want to see dead mice." and I added, "I just feel so bad about it. I don't like killing anything . Even mice that shit all over our house." And he replied, as if we were really at war, "I know honey. But it's either us or them."

My advice? Don't name things that you might have to kill one day. It's just a bad idea.