swift

There's a tiny problem in my bedroom. A tiny, skittish, browny-grey problem.

"Hello! I am a tiny problem!"

Yes, it is true -- I have a house mouse in my room.

Most people would be grossed out by this, but honestly, I think it's cute. According to Chinese astrology, I was born in the Year of the Rat, so maybe that explains my affinity for the little bugger. The only overwhelming feeling I have about the mouse is shame, because it makes me feel like I live in a trash pit -- which is only partially true; honestly, 90% of my mess is dirty laundry, so it's not like I have bits of old food laying around.

Unfortunately, when night comes, this tiny problem becomes a big problem. The house mouse, with an average life cycle of nine months, loves to chew. It gnaws on whatever it can get its tiny paws on, and in a dark room at midnight the noise it can make is surprisingly loud.

CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP skitter skitter CHOMP CHOMP pause...CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP slide across some plastic pause...

repeat ad infinitum.

So today when I get home from work I'm going to put out the traps, which makes me kind of sad. The mouse isn't really hurting anyone, it's just aggravating me. It's kind of a shame it has to give its life so I don't have to listen to it bite stuff all night long.

But it is my house. It is my room. I pay rent. The mouse does not.

Last night at five in the morning, I woke up to blaring fire sirens instead of mouse pitterpatter. But I'm so used to mouse disturbances in the middle of the night that I thought to myself,

"Oh God, the mice have discovered fire."

And so, in honor of a field mouse and flame, here is the Billy Collins classic "The Country."

The Country
by Billy Collins

I wondered about you
when you told me never to leave
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches
lying around the house because the mice

might get into them and start a fire.
But your face was absolutely straight
when you twisted the lid down on the round tin
where the matches, you said, are always stowed.

Who could sleep that night?
Who could whisk away the thought
of the one unlikely mouse
padding along a cold water pipe

behind the floral wallpaper
gripping a single wooden match
between the needles of his teeth?
Who could not see him rounding a corner,

the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam,
the sudden flare, and the creature
for one bright, shining moment
suddenly thrust ahead of his time -

now a fire-starter, now a torchbearer
in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid
illuminating some ancient night.
Who could fail to notice,

lit up in the blazing insulation,
the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces
of his fellow mice, onetime inhabitants
of what once was your house in the country?