verminator

The house feels haunted, with the scrapings and creakings, the little running feet, the rustles in the attic, the presence unseen but apparent. I keep thinking of the mice in the Nutcracker, that there's a huge one taller than me lurking in some hidden part of the house that will come out and take revenge for deaths of the one whose neck was broken in a trap and the other one stuck on the glue that I put out of its misery with a plastic bag and a trash can. And a slipper hurled at its head won't do the trick.

I wish we could coexist, but with the one-two punch of disease and eating my food, that can't happen. It's one thing to swat at wasps and another to premeditate with poisons and traps. I sleep on the living room couch because it's far away from where they hide, but I know it doesn't matter. It shouldn't freak me out a little bit but it does, and I want the damn things gone.

I also want a cat, but I feel like my motivations for pet ownership aren't completely pure, and it just makes me feel more spinsterly than I already am.

One of my coworkers tells me that it's better that I feel bad than take pleasure in the death of lesser creatures, and she's probably right, but there's something that makes me so queasy nonetheless.