.....I awake at 4am on Sunday morning on the couch with half a take away on the ground (not a good idea with a mouse around) and empty beer cans everywhere. I check my traps in the kitchen and the bait is gone again with no mouse. The hall and front room traps are still in place but bait is not gone. I decide to leave kitchen traps and put lashes of talc down and see where he goes next again. It's 5 am so I go to bed for a bit thinking this mouse does not know who he is messing with.
I sleep for an hour and when I open my eyes the stark reality hits me, my wife and children have left me over the mouse. This mouse has ruined my life and my family. I go downstairs and at least there is progress. There are clear tracks now out around the kitchen and back under the kitchen unit in the corner. That's where the little shit is laughing at me with his gringos all living it up on bacon and peanut butter.
I clean up the cans and I eat the rest of the take away for breakfast (I know I know) and even though Jane isn't here I hear a haunting voice in the background telling me to Hoover. I try not to but I know if I don't Hoover she will sense it in her mothers and get out her voodoo doll and stick pins in me.
Up to super valu I go and then I sit and have a nice few hours watching all sorts on the tv while reading the papers and drinking tea and listening in to oldies and Irish. Still no sign of a trap snapping.The pressure is mounting. I decide he won't come out with me in the house and head to the pub at 1 for a few scoops.
The story is going around the pub like wildfire about mickey and everyone has an opinion. One fella does the scene from jaws where yer man goes " I'll catch your mouse" and another says "we need a bigger trap". It's all good fun but I'm starting to get really worried now that the family are gone for good.
I go home steamboats and check the traps at around 5 and no joy. I ring Jane and the girls to say come home as this is ridiculous. I'm told it is indeed ridiculous that I can't catch a mouse and that i definitely won't catch him in the pub despite it being part of the plan. Is it not ridiculous to be afraid of a mouse I ask?
My manhood which is non existent anyway living with 3 sweat shop bosses is now totally gone. Even mickey mouse is more of a man than me! I cry for a bit and then have a good talking to myself. I bait up and put 600 traps,an f-16 fighter jet and the 4th battalion on guard for the night and watch the golf. Maybe mickey is just like me?Maybe he's not so bad?
Monday morning and the bait is gone again so now I know I have a huge decision to make. Do I continue down this route and only see my family at Xmas or do I lie to Jane.Work on Monday morning is taken up with major mouse discussion. Psychologically at this point I'm close to breaking but on a vote of 6-2 the lads think its best i lie if the mouse isn't dead when i get home.
With the sweat pouring out of me and prayers offered to every religious god that ever existed I go in home to find that mickey had escaped the grim reeper yet again and had consumed another lash of chocolate and peanut butter. Maybe he will get too fat to walk? Not a bad tactic maybe? I sit there staring into space for 30 mins before ringing Jane with an Oscar winning performance telling her I was once again a man and she should never have doubted me. She is thrilled and says she will be home ASAP.
If I thought I would get relief I was mistaken. I have a shower before the Brady bunch arrive home but I am consumed by this dirty lie and all I can hear is the crying game song in my head as I try to scrub this dirty lie away in the shower. What will happen if Micky pops out?I haven't seen him since day one at ground zero but he is there smirking under the sink with a big peanut butter moustache.
Everyday for weeks and months I live this lie now of checking traps and putting more and more devices down to trap him. If the gardai raided the house and saw all the gear they would think they had found a sordid sex dungeon. I'm able to tell Jane I'm leaving them down in case we get more so my lie us in tact.
We get 50 euros worth of those sonar yokeybobs and plug them in but Mickey Mouse is immune.He keeps getting the grub from the traps. Xmas day comes and goes with me worrying every second of the day he will pop out.
By the end January I had given up. Myself and mickey had a new arrangement, If he stayed out of sight I'd keep feeding him and we would live our lives separate. We became friends and mickey had Stockholm syndrome. I now prayed that mickey wouldn't be in the trap in the morning as I didn't want him to die. I felt huge respect for Micky. He had overcome the odds and the cats out the Back to survive.
Then it happened! Like a bolt out of the blue in march.We went away for a weekend and mickey had no food. We arrived back and that night from nowhere out he popped. This time Jane screamed so loud that she broke the sound barrier. before her scream finished she was gone like a usain bolt.
We were back to square one. I got mangled for the months of lies but didn't care. I was relieved that the lie was over. This time Jane would need photographic evidence. My heart was Broken that my good friend (probably the greatest friend I've ever had) was going to be no more.
The old traps had never worked so I went to Callaghans garage for poison and the famous mr C asked if I needed help.I told him how traps weren't working and he asked which traps I had? He said my traps were too big for the mouse and not sensitive enough. He gave me a trap for 50 cent that was barley held together. He told me there was no charge and that if the mouse wasn't caught in half an hour he'd catch it for me. I laughed in my mind saying he doesn't know mickey like I do.
I go home and I can hardly set the trap with the sadness and I still hope mickey will win. I put it in place. I walk to the front door heading for a curer.The trap isn't set 50 seconds and I hear it snap but think its just gone off as it had done trying to set it. I go back and look. I fall to my knees and hold my head. My friend, my comrade and the only other male in the house lay in the trap with his head burst open.
Im devastated! I can't believe it. I'm a murderer. I'm a sell out. I'm soulless. Why did this have to be they way it was? I take a picture and send it to cruella deville. I'll never be the same again. I sit with mickey as he takes his last breath. I pour a beer and take half an hour to gather my thoughts. I ring cruella and the gimps and tell them it's done.
sometimes as i lay awake in the night I think of mickey. I hope he is happy. I hope he is at peace, I hope he is not alone , I hope.......,,
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