Of Mice and (Wo)men

It’s a generally accepted opinion that when faced with the sight of a tiny, soft, fuzzy, pink-nosed rodent, most women will either shriek, jump onto a chair, grab a broom, or some combination of all three. I fall into the shrieking category. I’d like to say I’m not scared of something so little and harmless as a mouse, but I can’t help it. They’re just so....darn....cute. 

That might not make much sense to you if you’ve never been faced with the prospect of either killing one of the darling, adorable things or losing all your hard-earned food to its nibbly little teeth. I’m not scared of the mouse itself, per se. I’m more scared of myself. Perhaps a little frightened of the vengeance that will be wreaked upon my soul if I harm the tiny, helpless creature.

So I let Mark deal with them, and try to keep my shrieks to muted moans, else Lucy will come running.

You see, there’s a battle waging in the Hough household. Not family vs. mice, as you might think--because goodness knows, when you live in a 300+ year-old house, the mice are gonna come out ahead every time. No...it’s between me and my 5-year-old daughter.

Lucy is adamantly pro-mouse. She’s a mouse pacifist. It’s not good enough for her that we don’t use the violent spring-contraption traps...she thinks we should leave food out for them. She wants to make them Christmas presents. She names them.

I try to reason with her. I remind her of the time last year when a mouse nibbled through a bag in the cupboard and ate all her Christmas chocolate, leaving the golden wrappers to decorate our drinking glasses. I give her Exhibit B: my long-beloved ragdoll who now has a hole in her face. She shrugs, says I shouldn’t leave dollies on the floor where mice can get them, and asks why we didn’t just give the mouse his own chocolate.

I think St. Francis has himself a new follower. But the sad truth is that I can only blame myself for sharing some of my favorite books with her. Well, myself and Brian Jacques, Beatrix Potter, Robert O’Brien, and Richard Peck, to name a few.