Finally got around to watching the third Matrix movie.

Hmm. What it reminded me of more than anything was a comic-book movie–lots of source material skimmed over rapidly, characters not fleshed out as well as they could be because the people who’ve read the comic know all this stuff and so tend to assume will too. Characters that appear, mention something, and vanish again, and neither they nor whatever they mention, are ever pursued, and you get the feeling they were thrown in just because that’s what happened in the comic and it’d make sense if you had the trade paperback in front of you. And stilted dialogue without pauses that would flow much more naturally in panel format. Some great, wonderfully coreographed scenes. It was like a comic book, and one with a really good art team with vision and a writer who had some great ideas and a tin ear for dialogue. And no editor. But since I’m already months late, I’ll leave the review at that.

More excitingly, I caught a mouse.

My father suggested gluetraps, but James vetoed the suggestion, having used them before and not being able to bear stepping on little mousy heads. I confess, I’m a softy myself–I could feed a mouse to a snake, no problem, I feel no remorse when the cat deposits a mouse butt on my foot–I feel a lot of OTHER things, mind you, but not remorse–but actually having to execute the mouse would depress me. (Presumably I’d be okay if I ate the mouse afterwards, but that’s one adventure in dining I’m not ready for.) So today, having actually found a turd in the silverware drawer, we got a pair of livetraps, baited them with colby-jack cheese, (peanut butter is better, but we don’t have any) and stuck the traps in the cupboards.

‘Long about four hours later, there was a clatter and the awkward thunking unbalanced sound of a live body thumping around on a surface that isn’t quite stable. I pulled open the silverware drawer, and lo and behold, the trap had sprung. I took it out, put it on the counter, and considered my options, while the trap shook and rattled and boogied down, and Athena stood on her hind legs and danced like a furious Siamese marionette. Couldn’t let it go in the backyard or it’d be back in the house before I was. So I waited until James got back from the store, we hopped in the car and drove down the block to an abandoned field, I opened the door, flipped the lid on the trap, and shook it out. It clung to the ground in evident horror–possibly the bluegrass that NPR plays at night here had unsettled it. It had a sharp muzzle and seed-shaped black eyes so enormous in proportion to its head that if I tried to draw them, it’d feel like parody.

Having rebaited the traps, I’m keeping an ear cocked, waiting for the thunk! If we were victim to one lone mouse, I’d be pretty astonished. I don’t expect to reduce the mouse population with livetraps, just try and teach ’em some manners. I can’t hope to keep them out of the house, and god, I’d much rather have mice than roaches!–but turds in my silverware have stepped over the line.

Leave a Reply