It's Thursday morning. I'm headed into the kitchen to make coffee, and at the exact moment I step in front of the sink I hear an odd shuffling noise. I assume my ogresque pre-coffee gait has knocked over something in the cabinet, and I have no reason to revisit this theory until I hear the same shuffling after I've taken a few steps back toward the coffee pot.

Have I mentioned we found evidence of mice in our new house? Yep, mice. Apparently they've been getting in through a loose crawlspace door, then proceeding into the kitchen through holes in the back of the cabinets. We made this charming discovery a month ago, during the installation of our dishwasher ("I have bad news," said Andrey, the Handiest of Handymen). We've left the toe kick off the cabinets so we can set traps along their route, and block any holes that were missed.

There hasn't been any activity since the first night we set the traps, and that activity was as follows:

I am awakened by two loud snapping sounds in succession, followed by even louder squealing sounds that only last for a few seconds.

Reluctant to deal with a wounded mouse, I go back to sleep, assuming that if I give it some time I will instead deal with a dead mouse.

Later, I find two sprung traps, and no mouse.

We hadn't had a peep, snap, or squeal since then, and in fact I had just been thinking maybe it was time to put the toe kicks back up.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

So now I'm pacing in front of the cabinets, just knowing there's a mouse down there. A wounded mouse. And going back to sleep is not an option.

Finally I kneel down in front of the cabinets, as oblique to the shuffling sounds as I can manage in our galley kitchen.

And there is a mouse. A very intact-looking mouse. It's obviously stuck in at least one trap, but I can't see how. And this mouse is nowhere near death throes. In fact, if I don't do something, this mouse could live long enough to achieve pet status. I imagine it on its very own hamster wheel, trap thumping along beside it. Ack.

I could say I've never killed anything that didn't have an exoskeleton, but to be honest I feel some culpability for the demise of a goldfish whose bowl I really should have cleaned out more often.

Now I have to kill a mouse.

I don't have the guts to do a quick, manual thing, so I half-fill a bucket with water, intending to drown the mouse (I don't remember who originally put this idea in my head, my dad, or David Sedaris). I kneel down in front of the mouse, with the bucket on my left. I run through what I expect to do:

Reach in and scoop the mouse into a plastic bag (why don't stores use opaque bags anymore, dammit?).

Dump mouse into bucket.

Immediately cover the bucket with the bag so I don't have to watch the mouse struggle.

Take the bucket outside.

Stay away from the bucket until the mouse is no more.

I spent a lot of time on Step 1, first getting up to put on my gardening gloves in case the mouse was bitey, then moving the bucket from my left side to my right side and back again. Then I discovered that I couldn't maneuver the bag while I had the gloves on, and since the gloves seemed more vital than the bag, I resolved to just reach in and grab the mouse.

In the meantime, the mouse has shifted itself around to point one beady little eye at me. Concepts like "cute", "fuzzy", "poor little guy", and "inhumane" are competing for brain space with "gnawed wiring", "electrical fire", and "mouse doot in my Cheerios".

I take a second to put a very clear picture of Mickey Mouse in my head (man, I sure do hate Mickey Mouse), then do what has to be done. I reach in, grab the mousetrap -- taking the mouse and two other traps with it -- and drop the whole awful mouse/trap mobile into the bucket. I avert my eyes as I place a plastic bag over the top of the bucket, and immediately take the bucket outside. Then I go back inside to make the coffee I so desperately need.

An hour goes by, and I head outside to dispose of a mouse corpse. I realize an hour is overkill (shiver), but the last thing I want to see is a struggling mouse. I lift the bag off the bucket and find...a very wet mouse with its nose sticking up out of the water. Apparently there isn't enough metal on the trap to compensate for wood's tendency to float.

This is when I start referring to the mouse as Mary.

I pick up a nearby empty terra cotta pot and put it in the bucket to hold down the trap. The mouse sinks a bit, but the water level isn't quite high enough to submerge it completely.

"I'm so sorry, Mary," I say as I run back inside for more water.

Epilogue
It's 5:00 a.m. on Friday morning. I've just given up on finishing the mouse story so I can post it before I go to sleep. I crawl into bed, exhausted and with a head full of creepy mouse images. I'm starting to drift off when I hear what could be a snapping noise, but it's nothing denial can't overcome. Minutes go by. Another snapping noise, now undeniably, because it's followed by squealing.

I know S will be getting up in less than an hour, and I don't want her to go through her own round of mouse-trauma, so I get up and go into the kitchen. The mouse is still squealing, and fortunately for it I am more savvy about mouse executions, because -- unlike the previous mouse -- it is very vocal about its pain and terror. This makes putting it in the bucket easier, which is logical but also completely disturbing.

What's harder this time is actually capturing the mouse. I don't have to work up the nerve to grab it; I have to figure out a way reach it, since it's crawled all the way to the back of the space underneath the cabinets. Behind, I notice, another trapped mouse.

At least that one didn't need to be put out of its misery.

Around 5:45 a.m. I have both mice in the garbage can, and a note written for S. The note is scrawled across four Post-It Notes, and strongly suggests that we plug up the hole the mice have been getting through before I leave on Saturday.