Mice are for Men

I like to think I'm a pretty handy girl. I have my own tool box and a black belt in Ikea furniture assembly. Hair balls in the shower drain, no problem (even when of the ridiculously disgusting variety). Removing unidentifiable objects from the refrigerator? Got it covered. And somehow I became my house's resident IT department.

Granted, I think single people should receive a 50 percent off discount when trying to buy a home (how am I supposed to afford the same mortgage that two incomes can?), but overall, I consider myself pretty self-sufficient.

Except when it comes to Mickey Mouse.

I live in a cute, charming house in a nice neighborhood in Arlington. There's just one little problem - we've been overrun with mice for a year. On the plus side, I wouldn't say we're infested. We typically only have one or two at a time...but it's all the time! Numerous phone calls to the exterminator have yet to yield results. Yes, there are now poison and traps everywhere, but the mice keep coming. Our handyman has been over every inch of the exterior filling in anything that looks like it might be an entry point - and every couple of weeks we still wake up to a lovely (read: incredibly gross) surprise in the kitchen.

Turns out, as independent as I like to think I am, I'm utterly incapable of dealing with dead mice. I tried - once - but the trauma just proved too great for me. While I'm our house's expert trap-setter, I have a complete meltdown if I have to deal with the results. When I attempted to remove the offending creature, with the aid of a shovel and grill tongs, the situation quickly deteriorated to the point of screams and tears, leaving me emotionally drained.

Which brings me to the theory that mice are for men.

These are not cute, cuddly creatures. They are nasty, disease-spreading, cookie-eating rodents who have no place inside the four walls of our house. Disposing of them should be the work of men - this is your chance to prove your manliness and ability to protect house and home. I've seen the state of the bathrooms that many of you use blissfully every day - manhandling this six-inch long pest should prove no problem for you.

And yet, when we called upon the male specimen residing in a separate apartment in our basement during one particularly disturbing encounter with Mickey this summer, he proved useless.

As usual, we had set traps the night before and when we woke up that morning, noticed one of them was missing. A quick e-mail chain to various offices established that no one had made the early morning trip to outside with a furry corpse.

"The trap must have gotten pushed behind the trash," we all agreed. Except, a thorough inspection of the kitchen that night revealed it was really and truly missing. As we looked around the floor in confusion, our attention slowly turned to the stove.

"A mouse couldn't possibly drag the trap, could it?" I asked nervously.

With a considerable amount of trepidation, I pulled the stove away from the counter and cautiously peered into the space I'd created.

"Ummm, ladies....found the trap," I said. "And it's been sprung."

Thinking this an ideal opportunity to contribute something in the clean-up department, I grabbed the specially-designated mouse broom and started to slide the little wood and metal device away from the cupboard wall so I could reach in and grab it.

Except...it was stuck. "Eeeek!" I screamed. "There's something on it!" Everyone gathered around debating what to do. Far braver than I, Lauren reached for the broom and tried to move the trap into the open again.

"It's not just stuck on something, the mouse is still alive!" She shrieked.

That did it - I was not cut out for this kind of work. Luckily, there happened to be a speed trap stationed right outside our front door that night. "Is this the kind of thing we can ask a cop for help with?" I asked, in all seriousness.

We concluded we weren't ready to look that helpless just yet, and instead went in search of Matt, our downstairs neighbor. He was happy to help us deal with the situation - but his version of help was simply to bang his hand against the side of the cupboard to scare the mouse out of its hiding place. No such luck, of course, and that was as far as Matt was willing to go on the chivalrous front.

Finally, Kimberley - a petite 5'2" former sorority girl - took matters into her own hands.

"This is ridiculous," she said. "Hold my feet - I'm going in." And with that, she grabbed the grill tongs (seriously, these things are useful for so much more than just maneuvering food) and threw half her body into the cavity between the stove and the counter.

"I've got it!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "Bag!" And we quickly handed over the makeshift shroud so she could toss everything inside and bolt for the door.

When she reappeared, the rest of us were in awe.

I guess mice aren't for men - they're for very brave women. Good thing too, since we caught another one last night.