DISEASE CARRYING VERMIN

I learned something very important about myself today: I am a girl, and non-domesticated rodents flip me out.  There's a mouse that's been living in my suite.  The reaction of the 10 of us ranges anywhere from, "Aw, it's kind of cute" to mortal fear.  My reaction falls somewhere in between those two at a solid, "Disease carrying vermin, ah!"  It's not that I'm afraid of it, I'm just grossed out.  I suppose the one who thinks they're cute has a point: if they may give you diseases, it's good that they're at least cute and fuzzy rather than, say, mini-Rush-Limbaugh-like beings scurrying under my door.

I mean, I'm not going to lie.  I desperately craved a hamster for several years of my life.  My parents protested, but I got to bring home my 2nd grade class' pet, Ratical the rat.  My dog almost ate him, and then I almost lost him.  Suddenly, my parents didn't seem so ignorant in not seeing the pleasures of pets that require cages.  My dad's been against them ever since, as a child, he took his guinea pig out in the back yard to get some air and it died of heat stroke.  Just stopped moving and rolled onto its back.  He said the only consolation was that it would no longer make those annoying scritching noises in the middle of the night.

Anyway, my roommate just called me to tell me that she had her first mouse sighting.  The sightings have, thankfully, been mostly restricted to the girl who finds the mouse mildly cute.  That's all well and good, but can it be cute somewhere other than my room? That would be great, thanks.  I mean, my parents could buy a condo for what they're paying for my schooling.  The least they could receive for the services is my being rabies-free.

In the suite, we've started making outrageous claims about how we'll solve the problem.  My plan was motion-detecting taser lasers mounted in the top corners of the rooms that would shoot anything of a certain size (smaller than me).  More sane ideas included mousetraps.  Nice, but it doesn't have quite the same flair as being long-distance tasered.

I don't want to hear anyone talking to me about how rats and mice are really nothing to worry about.  I'm sure that's what the 14th-century Europeans thought, too.  But then there was this thing called THE BUBONIC PLAGUE.  But what's losing two thirds of the population, right?

technorati tags:mice, rats, vermin, girls, plagues