The first sign of the presence of mice coincided with the absence of a man. Two days after my divorce was final, I discovered tiny turds in my candle drawer. Later, I witnessed an unmistakable furry flash across the kitchen floor. I screamed like a college girl in a gone-wild video – but my shirt stayed on.

Cori, my four-year-old daughter, awoke wanting to know what scared Mommy. I told her it was a spider and I’d killed it.

“What if there’s more than one?”

I told her not to worry and sent her back to bed, and then began some serious worrying of my own…about multiple mice.

I shut the door to Cori’s room and stuffed a towel in the crack between the door and the floor. I did the same to my bedroom while a tiny treadmill turned in my head. I realized I couldn’t run out to buy a mousetrap without taking Cori. Besides, it was late. Contemplating my recently failed marriage, an unplanned escape from a man, I felt certain I could plan a trap for a mere mouse. Unfortunately, my mechanical aptitude is limited by my engineering knowledge, which consists of what I remember about “simple tools” from fourth grade. Fulcrum, pulley, lever and…what else?

One thing I do know is the reliability of a force called gravity. I exhumed a plastic two-liter bottle from the recycling bin. After cutting off the top to a mouse-sized opening, I inserted a piece of cheese in the bottom. I balanced the bottle carefully on one a garage step so even the weight of a mouse would tip the delicate scale and up-end the bottle, trapping Mickey or Minnie inside. The slippery, plastic bottle surface would prevent it from climbing out. The perfect trap.

Morning inspection of the pop-trap—which I was pretty sure I’d be patenting soon, and after an infommercial with Ron Popeil, would be a huge success—revealed that the bait and gravity worked all right. In fact, too well. Its force created momentum (grade 7 science, I think) which briefly up-righted, then toppled the bottle completely over. No baby Swiss or varmints in sight.

Never over-estimate the advice of a coworker.

“Glue traps. That’s what you need,” he said.

Another furry scurry the next night, from the kitchen into the basement, sprang me into action. I cheesed, then placed two glue traps in the basement—one at the bottom of the stairs and one on the landing (next to some soon-to-be Goodwill-ed clothing). Sometime during the 11:00 news, I heard gremlin-like screeches, straight-razors on my ear drums. Unspeakable sounds screamed “mices in crisis.” The visual on the landing was as horrific as the audio version. One mouse’s feet were stuck to the trap and another mouse was trying to pry them loose with its nose. I looked away, ashamed, and shut the basement door.

Morning Inspection: No rodents or traps on the landing. Two traps, no mice, no cheese, some mouse turds at the bottom of the stairs. Apparently I’d fed, and gravity (along with some mighty mouse muscle) had freed my mouse-mates.

Not initially wanting to commit mousicide, I finally gave in, upon the advice of a hardened hardware store clerk. Convincing me that a quick guillotine beat a hanging, I resorted to the traditional clap-trap. The clerk sensed my squeamishness and suggested those with a plastic cover: Sort of a medieval hood.
I finally told Cori what was going down in the basement. She curiously watched me set the traps.

Next day: DOA .The tell-tale omen of two tails protruded from the rear of tiny black tombs. I grabbed my garden gloves and a garbage bag, mousercizing the traps and their contents. I also threw in a pair of Cori’s tennis shoes from the landing, which the mice had mistaken for a potty. Trash in hand, I was stopped at the top of the steps by preschool curiosity.

“Mommy, can I see?”

“No, honey. You really don’t want to see this.”

“Yes, I really do.”

I reasoned dead rodents might help ease her into a scary concept: Death-lite?
I opened the bag. Cori looked inside, then at me, her eyes bulging and her bottom lip trembling.

I reached over and hugged her. “I’m sorry, honey. At least we know they didn’t suffer long.”

Cori’s lips tried to form words as she released her breath in spurts.

Finally, with a deep sobbing cry, she whaled, “But those were my favorite shoes.”