Theresa Lewis

No sooner did I have the creepy crawlies under control when the mice came in by the dozens. Oh, my goodness! I am not afraid of mice, but I don’t intend to co-habitate with them. What we have here are voles, also known as field mice. They are about three inches long. They are awfully cute looking, but they are also extremely destructive. They got into the food in my pantry and wiped me out to the tune of about one hundred and fifty dollars of packaged food.

 

The first vole I saw was in my bedroom as I sat writing on my computer. It just kind of toppled out of my heater then jumped back in again. I named that little guy Mortimer.

 

I got hold of some mouse traps and baited them with peanut butter. Well, it took a good four days to catch Mortimer because every day he would eat the peanut butter but manage to avoid getting caught in the trap. After putting new bait on the trap every day for three days straight and not catching Mortimer, I decided to leave the trap empty. I knew he would still get the smell and would walk all over the trap in search of the missing bait. It worked like a charm.

 

That night, around four o’clock in the morning, there was a loud ruckus in the ceiling over my bed. The noise woke me up. I envisioned it to be an Irish wake for dear old Mortimer by all his buddies. I got a dozen more traps the next day. It was the same scenario with the baited traps.

Daily the peanut butter would disappear, but no mouse would be caught. When the traps were left empty, the mice would get caught.

 

For the most part, when a vole gets caught, the trap flips upside down. It makes it easier to dispose of the little creatures when you don’t have to look in their faces.

 

One day, the trap in the parlor went off about two o’clock in the afternoon as I was watching television. It flipped upside down like all the others did. I let it be for a few minutes until an advertisement came on. When I went to pick it up to dispose of it, it moved and the vole squealed in tortuous agony. It nearly stopped my heart. I backed away from it. All of a sudden, the vole started jumping all over the place while still attached to the trap. I couldn’t handle what I was seeing. I hated having to kill any of God’s creatures, but this little guy wasn’t dead. He was only caught by one leg. It made me cry. I didn’t want to deal with it so I called my landlord to dispose of it. No one answered the phone. I waited until all was quiet and I tried once again to pick it up.

 

Every time I thought it was dead, it would have a fit as I approached it. The last attempt made the vole freak out so much that it got itself jammed under the heater where I couldn’t reach it. I had to listen to the vole scream in agony every few minutes until eleven thirty that night when my landlord finally came down to get it. He had to dismantle the heater to reach the vole. By that time, I was a basket case myself.

 

Since then, I tried a variety of other methods of getting rid of the voles. The one that I feel works best for me is the rodenticide. At least there is no chance of the one-legged catch that I found mentally devastating to me and a prolonged agony for the vole.

 

Just when I thought I had the vole problem licked, I spotted a very tiny one in the parlor as I was watching television. It was only a baby, about an inch long and it walked right up to me, climbed up on the toe of my slipper and looked up at me. I tried to chase it away, but it wasn’t afraid of me.

 

I knew that I had poison out under the heaters throughout my apartment. It was just a matter of time until it ate some and died. I felt bad because it was only a baby.

 

I stood up and went into the kitchen to do some Christmas baking. To my surprise, it followed me into the kitchen. Not only did it follow me into the kitchen, but it followed me around the kitchen as I tried to do my baking. I had to be so careful not to step on it and squish it like a bug.

 

When I couldn’t take the stress of trying not to step on the baby vole, I went into my bedroom to work on my computer. At one point, I felt something tickle my foot. I thought it was the wire from my computer mouse and I looked down. No, it wasn’t. It was the baby vole sitting on my foot again. Its tail was tickling my foot as it wandered around on the top of my slipper. I couldn’t believe that it followed me from the kitchen into my bedroom.

 

That little guy followed me everywhere for a couple of days until it ate some poison and died.

 

I guess the reason I don’t mind living alone is because I’m never really alone, after all. I have a steady stream of company. They’re uninvited company, but constant company nonetheless.

 

 

THE END