Apparently we’ve been overrun by mice. I thought we had them under control, but they’re back. She, of course, just looks the other way when I tell about her about this and what I have to do about it.

So I called in professionals. For hundreds of dollars, enough to buy a new stove, they laid out a battle plan to end them.

I could imagine this little band of rodents watching them from the dark corners.

“Who are these new people?” one whispers to the others.

“They’re here to rid the house of us.”

“Us?”

“Us.” This was followed by a cascade of mice laughter I could actually hear.

Every house owner knows how impossible such an act of mouse elimination is.

You can, like we do, keep the house free, sort of, of crumbs and items that the laughing mice come for in the dark of night. Sometimes in the light of day.

In our New York apartments, it could have been worse. We lived rodent free, because I had moved in with her in her Upper East Side apartment which was rodent free, with wall to wall carpets and crumb free kitchen.

Most New Yorkers, even with doormen at the doors, on 5th Avenue and Park Avenue, have rats, not tiny mice, but big dog size rats and squirrel size roaches. And you thought New York was all Broadway.

Back here in Maine, the pros proposed a plan to reseal all entrances to the house, then the basement and attic, which we have been unable to get to in years.

A friend who lives nearby in a newer house, an immaculate abode with two vacuum cleaners by the way, confessed to me, “I just set traps. They die. I throw them in the trash.”

“You didn’t hire professionals?”

“You’re kidding. I’m leaving for Florida in a week. I just buy a box of traps; you kill ‘em and toss ‘em. It’s cheaper. You can’t kill every mouse in the woods who wants to get warm and eat bagel crumbs.”

I took his advice and bought a lot of traps. This is embarrassing. I can’t set them. I’m terrified of mouse traps. Just as you put the peanut butter on them and pull back the lethal part, it snaps your finger.

So I called my friends, these two young women — a computer expert, and her mate, a teacher — who know how to do this kind of stuff.

They came and set the traps for me.

For a few days, the “death house” boxes went unused.

Then this morning, I found three undesirables in the traps with one of the victims still twitching.

Have you ever seen such a scene? Three mice DOA and one is twitching.

It’s like watching a state hanging a killer with his toes still twitching, and I, especially in Lent, have trouble dealing with that. I have old Catholic guilt.

I can’t call a priest and book a confession in one of those little polished oaken cages. Do they still have those, with the little screened window that slides back and forth so the priest can’t see you, but can recognize your voice? Can’t do that.

Well, I’m remorseful at DEFCON 5 because I became the murderer of innocent pests, and I can still hear them laughing at night. Can you hear them?

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer. 

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