Squeak!

My fear of mice is irrational, I admit it. There comes a time in every father's relationship with his son when the veil of invincible manly dad-ness is pierced, once and forever, never to be made whole again. Once the imperforable aegis of paternal idealization has been perforated, it more shatters than deflates, sending shards of false bravado and unearned adoration in all directions at once, at the deafening speed of Fuck You Old Man, You're Not The Boss Of Me. The demotion from larger-than-life to regular-size is all the more shocking, as the boy must suddenly struggle with the realization that instead of an Olympian son of Zeus, god of gods, he is the accidental offspring of Bruce, unhappy cubicle zombie who kind of runs like a girl.

For me, I fear, this happened when I opened the door between the laundry room and the garage and found myself punim à punim with a local variety of Mus musculus, your common, everyday house mouse.

I didn't scream. I'm not quite that much of a 1940s Tom and Jerry cartoon lady with the polka dot dress, low heels and cankles. My calves are very well defined, thanks very much. There may have been a gasp or two and a slight--slight--clutching of the chestal area where a string of pearls might not go amiss. But I was brave enough to get the dog to chase it into the imaginary hole of nonexistence (which begins exactly where my line of sight ends) so I could get in the car and drive to Home Depot, where they sell little bags of Evil Rat Infestor Disgusting Parasite Killer poison, which I dutifully dispatched.

I don't fish because I'm not really interested in interacting in any way with what I catch. A boated fish is the saddest, most pathetic sight in all of nature. Plus there's no way I'm eating anything caught in any water system in SoCal without a full panel of shots like they give to people traveling to Tanzania. The point is, in that respect, I am thoughtfully circumspect about my actions, i.e. I don't fish.

I put out rat poison to kill the mouses, but then I have to remember: now I have to deal with a dead mouse.

My extreme negative reaction to mice and rats is out of revulsion more than any fear of physical danger. If it comes down to a fight, I like my chances against your average 11 oz. critter, no matter what its disposition. But bleh, they're just so... gross. They touch all your stuff where you can't see them, at night when you're sleeping, they sneak stray bits of dog food, gnaw through your Costco boxes of Nature Valley granola bars in the garage, murder 2/3 of Europe's population as vectors of the Black Death... I believe my shock-horror response is more out of an earned evolutionary preservation instinct rather than just me being a pussy.

So I had to ask my 10-year-old son to help me scoop up the dead mouse and throw it away. He was bemused by this in a very now-I-see-through-you-you-pathetic-coward kind of a way.

But look, the only thing more gross and potentially disease ridden than a house mouse? Dead house mouse.

Just because I don't want to get typhus doesn't make me a coward. It's still a rodent. I know they're small and mostly harmless, but you'd be surprised what kind of damage something that seemingly delicate and defenseless can do when roused. When you see one coming at you, even though logically you know it can't do you any real harm, your instinct is to back your Escalade up as fast as it will go, obstacles be damned. It may be small, but put a golf club in its hands and you've got trouble.