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Sunday, March 20, 2011

Mice: Mind Over Matter

On a few occasions I have seen mice in my apartment. On more than half of these occasions I have screamed quite loudly.

To make the mouse (let's keep it singular for my own peace of mind) seem less like an intruder, I have enacted a couple of key approaches...

One: give the mouse a name
I decided that if f I gave the mouse a name he would seem to be less of an intruder and more of a pet. Even though I have no desire to have a pet mouse, it just seemed like a logical approach... rather than scream when I saw the mouse, I would just say 'oh hey, Lionel, what's up bud?'  Honestly, this didn't really work... maybe you wouldn't eat anything with a name but you certainly get annoyed with things with names...

Two: look up pictures of adorable mice
A couple of times I have heard the mouse without having seen it. When this happens, I simply google "adorable mouse" and convince myself that the mouse I am hearing is freaking adorable like these guys:




And who could be scared, peeved, grossed out or upset by an angelic little critter like that?! 

Three: avoid confrontation
Before going into the kitchen at night, I clap to scare any mice off before I enter. Avoiding confrontation is key, and they are very likely to disperse if they hear a big bad human coming.

Okay, so I said "a couple of key approaches" but then openly admitted that one didn't work. Well, at least I gave it a try! The others are good though! 

Mind over matter my friends... we humans can basically convince ourselves of anything if you try hard enough and google is always there to lend a helpful hand. 


images via sodahead



7 comments:

jessica said...

Ok, I will never think of mice the same way! That mouse with the teddy bear is so cute! I hope that's what the one under my oven is like.

kerry hawkins art and photo said...

Maybe you could borrow a cat, cute post, though

Laura said...

When I lived in fenway, we had a mouse. Well, in retrospect, we probably had several mice. And they were all named Karen. When guests would sleep over, we'd alert them that and scurrying sounds were subject to a visit from our dear friend Karen.

One morning, we awoke to one of the Karen's 4 tiny feet up dead on our stovetop. She just keeled over on her way to the bread box. Poor little Karen....

Erika said...

Danielle, sorry but I laughed so hard not only at your story but at the photos.

My freshman year in college I lived in a dorm. My roommate and I had eaten pizza the night before and left the box out on the floor (we were in college). The box started to shake and as I was getting dressed for an 8 am class we ended up waking up a lot of girls with our yelling:)
People were not happy with us; though I am not sure if was because we woke them up or because we let them know there was a rodent among us!

Ally said...

I feel for ya. I grew up on a farm, so when harvest hit, the field mice found our house. I never got used to them either. Great post.

Danielle said...

jessica - i know, that one with the teddy bear gets me every time

kerry - i've thought about that but i'm not really a cat person :/

laura - first of all it's awesome that you named her Karen lol secondly i think it really did work in your case as you expressed sadness at Karen's death. great work

Erika - thats a great mouse story - once there was one trapped in the bottom of my empty garbage can ugh cannot deal!

crooked - i am relieved to know that even someone who is presumably familiar with animals still didn't enjoy the mice... thank you!

PeculiarForest said...

Aww mice are cute although I have 2 pet rats myself and they are little terrors! :)