Thanks to Disney, the image of a scary cartoon mouse has become a cultural icon symbolizing childhood fantasy and magic. They even have a theme park based on this little freak, and it’s supposed to be “the happiest place on earth”. To me, there’s nothing magical about those demonic rodents. I will admit that I really hate mice. They look evil and have nasty cold feet that scurry around in the darkness, carrying the rodent wherever his dark deeds lead him. No one should actually like these little pests, they eat your food, and gnaw through your wall and possessions. They also scare the daylights out of me.
When I was about eight, I had an extremely scary experience with a little rodent. We seemed to have a mouse problem in our old house, so my dad had strategically placed those sticky mousetraps around the perimeter of our house in hopes of catching the little turdmuffin exiting or entering the house. Too bad he didn’t bother to notify me of this new method of mice catching. These mousetraps are just a sheet of paper with some firm, sticky, green gel on the top half. They were very well hidden, and could not be picked out by the naked eye. They were always lying in the shadows waiting to catch some unsuspecting mouse. Or person.
One morning, I went out to the garage to get something. While I was out there in the semidarkness, I walked around looking for the thing I needed. Rummaging around in the corners, I apparently had stepped on one of the sticky papers, but I didn’t notice it for a while because I had shoes on. It was all quiet out in the garage, and I thought I was alone, but then heard some squeaking. Before I even looked I knew what must have transpired in the time stepping everywhere. I looked down and to my horror I saw a little furry gray mouse standing on the sticky paper, right in front of the food we used to bait him, reaching out his little paws towards the food, as if it would save him from the screaming giant. It was squealing and squeaking pretty loud, but could not compare with my high pitched little boy screams. I had never been so scared in my young life.
When my mom came out to see what was wrong, she started screaming and using some “bad” words. Through all the cussing and yelling I was hopping all around trying unsuccessfully to shake the paper and the mouse off of my shoe. I was too shocked to think through the situation and just take my shoe off. Apparently Mom was too. If Dad hadn’t shown up right then, I’m not sure what would have happened. He took the shoe right off the foot of that crying screaming little boy I was, and threw the evil trap in the trash, squeaking mouse and all. If the tiny creature hadn’t scared me to death I would have felt kind of bad for it, but since I almost got a heart attack, I was glad it got disposed of.
I haven’t really had any more mouse encounters, so I don’t know if I’ve conquered my fear of them or not. But I do know that the best way for me to deal with the memory of this to laugh. So the next time I’m faced with a major trauma and paralyzed by fear, I will try to find the humor in it.