The Mouse in the Kitchen

God hates mice, too

There is a mouse in our kitchen.

I mean, I live on a farm surrounded by woods, and October’s oranges and reds and sunny, mild days can’t hold back November forever, and if there was ever a time and place one would expect mice to be searching out a winter retreat, it’s here and now. But I still feel indignation and a homemaker’s shame at this fact. I’ve done all I can- scrubbed the kitchen with fearsome vengeance, made sure each pantry box and bag is tightly sealed, threatened the barn cats both in word and facial expression, and yet here we are.

Ken and Gabriel laid down traps in the kitchen, in the warming box under the stove, at the side of the fridge, in the mudroom next to the muck boots. They’ve all remained empty, except perhaps for the mocking laughter of the rodent that I imagine echoing in them. In my head, it’s twirling a mustache (mouse-tache? no. sorry.) as it laughs, like some cartoon villain. Except not cute. Because that image sounds like it would be cute, with a mouse in a little top hat and black cape, but it’s not cute because it’s a mouse, and so don’t make it cute in your head.

The dog’s seen the mouse, one evening when she was sleeping peacefully by the front door. One moment River was an old, old lab mix, snoring gently and curled in a ball, the next moment she had snapped to attention, the vaguest hint of her wolfish ancestors visible in the perk of her ears. Alas, nurture and nature have bred all the bloodlust out of her, because aside from a moment of hereditary interest, River appeared nothing more than mildly irritated that something disturbed her slumber.

Gabriel and Veronica have seen the mouse, one afternoon when they were doing a mis en plas for brownies (if we use French terms we can count it for homeschool). They opened the drawer under the stove to remove baking pans and suddenly, a riot of screaming and crashing and hysterical, panicked laughter. Gabriel, at fifteen sweetly taking on the role of protector, warned me not to come into the kitchen.

I immediately came into the kitchen.

They pointed out the nest that the mouse had made next to the cooling racks and baking stones, and I about fainted. Snakes and skunks and possum, creatures that draw irrational, primal fear in some of my family members, don’t phase me. I’d lift snakes out of the path of my husband, who would be frozen in abject, but hilarious terror. I’d shoo raccoons away from garbage cans and possum out of chicken coops while children screamed in shivery nervousness. But mice? Well, to the fear-driven section of my deepest lizard brain, they ranked with spiders and earwigs. Dreadful. Unbearable. A phobia in the truest sense of the word.

Listen. It’s a farm. There’s all kinds of vermin here. This last spring, when I was clearing the farm stand of all the winter debris that blew in there, I ran across a female mouse actually nursing her young and I’m almost faint right now, as I type this memory out. The guttural, mindless noise that came from my mouth drew the rest of the family to my aid, several of them already with barn cats in their arms, because it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that mom + spring cleaning the farm stand + that sound coming out of her = mouse.

The kids put the barn cats down in the stand, and all I’ll say about what happened next is that those cats are way more useful than my stupid, lazy, aged dog.

But that was outside. Mice and spiders and earwigs are spared a targeted extermination as long as they stay outside. Once they cross my threshold, however, all bets are off. And so the mouse in my kitchen has a death sentence that needs to be carried out.

This is a view of the lower fields and the marshy woods. This is where mice belong. Not in my kitchen.

Ken saw the mouse last night, while he was at the dining room table working on school, and the rest of the house had finally settled into sleep and silence. It poked its head out from under the prep table next to the stove, and looked right at my husband with its horrible (probably laser shooting) eyes. It then ducked back under the safety of the table, only to emerge again a few moments later. A grotesque hide and seek with hantavirus as the prize.

My husband, who is normally a sensible, sane man, told me that story early this morning, told it to me with a voice full of gentle good humor, as if there was something endearing about a filthy, disease carrying goblin dwelling in the very heart of our home. He used kind adjectives to describe the monster, noting with some wonder that it wasn’t a brown field mouse, but rather pale and tiny, and with the word “tiny”, was the unspoken “cute”.

I know that the post right before this one was talking about how God designed all things to serve a purpose and I shouldn’t actively pray bad things about His creation and blah blah blah, but listen, hear me out. Even the Bible’s with me on this one. The literal Word of God. Check out Leviticus 11:29:

And these are unclean to you among the swarming things that swarm upon the earth: the weasel, the mouse, the great lizard according to its kind

See? Unclean. And as far as OT condemnations go, it’s hard to top that one. Now check out Isaiah 66:17:

eating swine’s flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, says the Lord

I don’t know what “the abomination” is, or how it could be worse than eating mouse flesh, but both of them are gonna spell your demise, you unclean ghoul.

And who could forget the Divine punishment visited upon the Philistines when they stole the Arc? Tumors and mice. Tumors, by the way, which modern day scholars think were probably caused by the bubonic plague spread by- you guessed it- mice. So yeah. Mice, much like spiders, earwigs, and ticks, were probably something lovely and pleasant before the Fall brought sin and death and grossness into Creation. But now they’re loathsome and unclean and horrible. Thanks a lot A & E.

Anyway, all this is to say that if you’re surveying the damage the weekend brought to your house, and you’re feeling like maybe you do a terrible job keeping the place tidy, at least you don’t have a mouse on the loose in your kitchen.

And if you do, just know God hates mice, too.