Mice. Most urban dwellers have to deal with them at some point. And I dare say most react to a mouse spotting with some degree of horror, fearful that the tiny creature will run up their pant leg or steal their baby from its crib. But I've always taken them in stride.
Maybe it was an early positive relationship with Tom (of Tom and Jerry) which left me predisposed to kindness towards these meek creatures. Or my lifelong disdain of hunting things big or small for sport (what kind of person can possibly get pleasure out of extinguishing the life from something by their own hand?). Or my relinquishment of meat eating many years ago.
My Buddhist approach to rodents was put to the test recently when my morning foray into the kitchen was met with a small grey scurry into the middle of the floor, followed by brief eye contact during which the mouse quickly calculated that I was nothing he wanted to get near. I calmly and clearly informed him that if he would just move to somewhere I could not see him, he was welcome to stay. He obeyed, scampering under the radiator. I believe I heard a sight of relief (his).
But he was a renegade. The next morning he brazenly scampered across the kitchen counter into the stove. Perhaps he had misunderstood me the day before. I would let it slide. I put on the kettle and popped a spelt muffin (palatable with enough butter) into the toaster. That's when his mate scampered out and into the stove after him.
It was now clear. They were a young couple living in the bottom of my toaster. I think it was their first home, a modest two slicer from a low-end appliance brand. But this was too close for comfort. It had been many weeks since I'd dumped the crumbs from the bottom tray. I opened it, fearful that an extended mouse family replete with mewling babies would emerge. But there was nothing. Not even a crumb. Licked clean. Yes, I experienced a resounding "ick".
I didn't want to subject them to glue traps or belladonna or anything that makes them die a grizzly death (which is usually under the floorboards. Have you ever smelled a decomposing mouse? It's not for the faint of heart, and it goes on for days). They're just trying to get on with life without bothering anyone. And I thought they wouldn't stay long in my stove, as scrambled eggs last September was the stove's most recent brush with food.
Sarah Palin would've crushed them with her hands and field dressed them right there on the kitchen counter. But I chose a more diplomatic approach, an embargo of all food and drink. I was meticulous in leaving the kitchen spotless and waterless before bed. But still, I would awake to find mouse droppings on the counter.
I had just decided to sublet my apartment, so I knew I was going to have to do something more proactive. I researched rat zappers, which kill them quickly supposedly, or is it just a slow bake, like being microwaved to death? Plus then I'd have to dispose of the bodies (and where do you do that, down the trash shoot, via the toilet? A proper burial in the park?)
I casually mentioned the problem to my building super assuming it was up to me how I wanted to get rid of them. But he was resolute and insisted on coming up the next day to put down poison. And alas, they never appeared again. I felt bad. But I did give them a chance.
Mind you, if it had been rats, that would've been another story altogether. No mercy.