The other day I had to kill a mouse. Maybe I didn't have to, but I did kill it. I'm not fond of killing things. Insects I can deal with, but creatures with legs and without an exoskeleton, that's another matter. Heidi and I have three cats, so usually around early Spring we start seeing bits of bird carnage staining the garage floor. It's not like I get home from work every day and have to take a snow shovel to the piles of corpses or anything. More like every few weeks we find a bird's foot or some feathers and dried intestine. A little gross perhaps, but no big deal. That's what cats do after all. So the other day I'm about to brush my teeth and I see out the bathroom window my cat Tank fiddling with something. Then the something moves on its own. The last time this happened it was a mortally wounded bird. As you know, cats don't just deal a lethal blow, pull out their napkin and silverware and go to town, they slowly kill their prey while playing with it.

Play

verb.
To manipulate a creature (preferably living) using sharp implements such as teeth or claws.

This time, it was a mouse, and a surprisingly large one at that. It was intermittently crawling slowly away, but otherwise just sitting there awaiting its inevitable demise.*Perhaps I'm anthropomorphizing. It was having better luck when it wasn't moving, but it didn't really look to be that bad off.

Hero or Hatchetman?

So now I'm in a spot. If I continue to go about my business, the mouse will die a slow and agonizing death and finally end up in bits strewn across my garage floor, or if I'm lucky, on the patio. Tank would eat it and probably be just fine*and need less for dinner. On the positive side, I now have one fewer mouse traipsing about my home. Now, I don't much like the idea of even a mouse suffering a slow death. If it's destined to die, then mercy; if not, life.

But which is it?

At the time, I certainly wasn't in the mood to reflect on how the concept of destiny fit into my greater world view. I had just learned there was a mouse in my house (bad) which my cat had caught (good) and was about to transform it into all-organic finger paint. Really, I just wanted to brush my teeth. Keep in mind that I'm nonplussed about the idea that the reward for saving the mouse is the continued existence of a mouse in my house. I considered the following options:

• I could catch it and
  • toss it into my neighbor's yard, making me the obvious first choice for the coveted "Best Neighbor" Award, OR
  • drive it to the nearest animal hospital—who am I, Mother Theresa? OR
• I could kill it and get back to brushing my teeth, OR
• I could close the window and make a mental note that I likely had some clean up to do later

Uncharacteristic of my idiom, I chose the more violent route.

Choose your weapon

Heidi has killed far more rats, mice, and other small creatures than I'm sure I will in my lifetime. She studied at Moorpark College in their Exotic Animal Training and Management program. This involved feeding a lot of big things littler things. She's told me many stories of slamming rats, giving hand gestures and everything, but I'm not feeling up to grabbing this mouse. So at first I think "What would Heidi do?" then I opt for the hatchet*Heidi would not have opted for the hatchet.. Feeling like a positive barbarian, I grab the hatchet from the garage, walk outside, push away the cat, and swing. And miss. Well, worse than a miss, really. It moved during the downstroke, causing my blow to fall off target and grievously wound it. It screamed*squeaked, really, and I quickly chopped again. And again. And perhaps one more time to make sure its life was extinguished. I bagged the body and chucked it in the trash. It was dead, and I felt like a monster. If the first swing had done the deed, I'm sure I wouldn't feel this bad about it. It's silly, I suppose, but I feel like I let the mouse down. I failed in my silent promise to be kinder to it than my cat would have been. I think I forgot to brush my teeth afterward.