The Mousetrap (or, The Terrible Futility Of Revenge)

May 2007:

I was angry when I realized that mice were getting into my snack drawer from under my bed. So duct-taping a cardboard cover over the open back, cutting off their access, wasn’t enough for me. I set a mousetrap. Not a humane mousetrap — a snap-your-neck mousetrap. I slid it under the bed behind the snack drawer and let it go. I was angry at the time. I was not angry, however, when I found the dead mouse in it two days later. I was horrified. It is one thing to be angry and wish death upon something or someone, it is something else entirely to follow through on that wish, to plot death and carry it out, to set a trap and kill a mouse. I felt terrible about it — this mouse, who for all I know was bringing food back to its children, did not intend me any harm and I murdered it for daring to trespass on my snacks. As I lifted it up with a plastic bag over my hand and placed it in the trash can I whispered a prayer for its soul, hoping its death wasn’t long and drawn out, that it died instantly and not injured scared and alone. I asked it for forgiveness, prayed for my soul as well. “You deserved better,” I said as I shut the lid on the trash.