Of Mice and Men

Its a quiet Thursday night at home and Rachelle has just gone to bed. I’m usually in bed early as well but as luck would have it I’m off the following day. So I’m doing what every other guy does on a snowy night indoors, playing Modern Warfare 2 on xbox live.

As I’m engaged in the process of blowing my enemies up online, I hear a funny noise. I turn my head and immediately realize the source of racket. There sits a mouse, staring at me like he knows he just made a HUGE mistake. I begin running scenarios in my head on how to handle this….

There’s one, but are there more? I need to get him out of here but can he get back in? Should I just make a run at him now and try to pick him up? ugh, I’ve got to quit this round on xbox and I was on a 9 kill streak. I can’t wake Rachelle up, she needs her sleep. But I need to turn some lights on. CRAP! he just ran under the bookshelf, fast little sucker. I should’ve thrown a shoe at him.

I spent the next 20 minutes trying to get the mouse out from behind the bookshelf, he just wasn’t having it. Of course I had given thought to move the bookshelf, but its secured into the wall by screws. Its now almost 1:30am and I’ve had just about enough of this. I decided to wake Rachelle and ask permission to remove the animal by force. She was hesitant at first, but the possibility of a rodent scurrying into our bedroom and spreading its disease ridden filth into our living space was all the convincing she needed.

As you will see in the video, the space is extremely small, there is no way to reach behind the shelf and grab or attack anything hiding back there.

I loaded my Savage .22, bolt action rifle with 1 round,

asked Rachelle not to scream,

took aim,

apologized to the mouse and to God,

and fired.

As you can see from the footage, Rachelle’s initial reaction was less than thrilled. But given the options, she realized it needed to happen. He died a quick death and peace was restored to our home.

**Please note that every precaution was taken through this process. I am a firm believer in RESPONSIBLE gun ownership. My rifle is a small caliber and is kept under lock & key at all times. As far as discharging a firearm indoors, this incident took place in a basement, the angle at which the gun was fired was in such a way that no penetration could occur.

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