I'm not exactly okay.

[amishrobots]

I killed a mouse just now.

In the last few weeks, I've occasionally seen a small dark shadow fly across my living room floor.
When I would try to inspect, I would find nothing at all. I was beginning to think maybe I just drink too much (I do.)
Maybe I was hallucinating. Somewhere between the maddening sound of that awful train horn (I swear it's gotten much louder in the last few years) and the fucking birds who keep trying to build a nest in the eaves of my porch, not to mention the endlessly creeping ivy determined to engulf the back corner of my house, I thought "maybe I'm just losing my shit, maybe the little dark blur racing across the floor in my peripheral vision isn't even real."

But deep inside I knew better. I've dealt with mice, and rats before. So just now, when I saw that bit of darkness by the door, saw it dive behind the crate full of old magazines, I grabbed the crate, slid it away from the wall, and there it was, the cute little furry abomination with its big, sad, black eyes in its tiny little head, looking terrified and alone, out in the open, whiskers twitching. Not a hallucination after all. So I went to find my claw hammer..

As I dug through my mess of tools by the couch on the other side of the room, the adorable little bastard ran along the wall seeking cover in the corner, somewhere behind the milk crate upon which my computer printer sits. I found my hammer, grabbed it, then went over to the corner of the room where I had seen him run to. I figured by then he might have found some hole in the floor to escape in. I sorta hoped he had. But no, as I snatched away the milk crate with the printer on it, there he was..

I looked at the helpless little creature for a second, hating what I was about to do. Then I carefully aimed for the head.,,

On the first blow I crushed half his skull. One big round black eye dangled from the wreckage. He struggled to get away, flailing his arms and feet to move, but it was clear that he wasn't going to go far, so I swung again. At this point I tried to pick him up with the claw end of the hammer, but his whole body was twitching, trying in vain to somehow stay alive. So I hit him one last time, completely flattening his already destroyed skull, and he was still. There's a mess of blood on the floor where he died. More blood splattered on the wall. Blood on the hammer I killed him with, and more blood on the dustpan that I scooped him into, before flipping him off into the front yard, where I suppose I'll obliterate his rotting corpse with the lawnmower some time later.

I don't like killing; in fact I hate it. But I also hate cleaning little pellets of feces off of my kitchen counter tops, or replacing electrical wires gnawed apart by rodents. (I'm told that the plastic coating has traces of soy that they think is food) I wish I could live in peace with the little bastards, but they shit everywhere, tear shit up, and can even cause actual fire hazards. I've used humane traps in the past, dropping them off in the woods behind the dumpster where I work, but the results have been hit or miss, and meantime they breed new little bastards for me to deal with. Do I deserve to live any more than they do? Probably not, but I have a hammer, and they don't.

[RUBBISH]

Album cover image of children and small animals with the words...
I HAVE A HAMMER AND THEY DONT
or
I HAVE A HAMMER,THEY DONT

[banned]

I drowned some ants before, didn't use boiling water, and executed dying animals, which is a noble kill.

[NoiseWiki]

Where there is one mouse there is more..

I have no love for mice or rats but nothing against Disney specifically. They've chewed through the wires on my wifes car several times. During that period I put traps around and I went to check one that was under a cardboard box and to my amazement there was a still very much alive baby rattlesnake caught in the trap. I managed to rescue it from the trap and released it elsewhere.

[RUBBISH]

I have smashed mice before and will do it again!
Rodents are cute and all that and I don't really care to kill animals but rodents spread disease and will fuck shit up ...chew wires that will in turn start a fire. Fuck them.

I will smash to a bloody pulp shoot stab chop hack stomp kill any animal or person that attacks me Charlie Wayne my friends or family.

Again I'd rather not but I will.

[Paperback]

We have a cat. She once caught a mouse and brought it to us alive and dropped it in our laundry. Bad kitty. She’s doing it wrong. So we put out traps.

[amishrobots]

Album cover image of children and small animals with the words...
I HAVE A HAMMER AND THEY DONT
or
I HAVE A HAMMER,THEY DONT

Yeah, I like the second one better, as top and bottom text. The imagery reminds me of the opening scene in "The Wild Bunch" (1969) where a bunch of kids are clustered around a little enclosure they made with sticks and rocks. Great movie.

I may have to use this idea, if I can get my new puter working and actually start making stuff again. It's been a while.

I definitely feel like an insignificant creature, killing creatures that are really only slightly more insignificant than myself.
Depressing thoughts.

[amishrobots]

Where there is one mouse there is more..

I have no love for mice or rats but nothing against Disney specifically. They've chewed through the wires on my wifes car several times. During that period I put traps around and I went to check one that was under a cardboard box and to my amazement there was a still very much alive baby rattlesnake caught in the trap. I managed to rescue it from the trap and released it elsewhere.

Yeah, this is certainly not the first mouse I've had to deal with, and I fear it will not be the last. I had thought that I was rid of them here, hadn't seen any signs of them for quite a while, but of course the bastards always come back.

The previous house I lived in, we had a free range pet rat named Gus. He would wander into sight now and then, see us, freak out and clumsily run away like the fat-ass that he was. It was all very amusing, until the day I looked in the closet, and saw that he'd chewed apart the cables of my old NES controllers. At that point I knew he had to die.

[NoiseWiki]

I had pet rats and mice in college .. I can't remember how that got started .. I had a rat and I shoplifter a mouse from the pet store at the local mall. Anyway .. there wasn't something quite right with the mouse and the rat ate it or just the front half.

The following year I breed my rat with somebody else's rat .. and had a whole bunch of rats. The ruined a number 9f books that I still have. Most notable was my parents set of Man Myth and Magic. They're not collectors items but I think are one of the roots of my interest in the weird etc.

I gave away several of the rats and after I moved to Chicago was down to two. I left them with a neighbor over Xmas holidays that I figured I could trust because he had a jib as a vet tech. I gave him money for rat food and for taking care of them but when I got back one had eaten the other because he had stopped feeding them.. he still wanted to be paid the rest if the fee fir taking care if them but I declined. I eventually gave the survivor to an ex girlfriend and I think I managed to due of natural causes.

Years later when I worked in a studio in SF we had a bad mouse infestation. You'd see them run by the door in the corner of your eye. We finally had to put out poison which is a bad idea for many reasons but the worst is that the all go back to the nest to die which was under the floor in the middle of the studio. There was like this poltergeist in this one area where there was a column of stench from their rotting bodies.

[RUBBISH]

I have to second the idea of NOT using poison (or quickcrete mixed with cornmeal! WTF...don't rats eat concrete anyhow?) except as an absolute worst case scenario last resort against swarms and even then I think it would result is mass collateral death of innocent creatures.
The reasons are numerous and obvious for not using poison.

Traps of any sort are more sporting and fair.
Also the idea that maybe if other mice see thier buddies get whacked/caught in a trap that they'll move on...pretty sure they don't give a shit but you never know.

The secret of NIHM!