There was a little mousie beside Boo’s litter pan this morning. I could hear him making an odd squeaking sound that I thought at first was coming from a bearing on the furnace motor that needed oil, but the longer I listened to it the more obvious it became that it was an irregular sound, not in time with the turning of the furnace motor. When I cocked my head to see where it was coming from I thought it was behind me, but when I turned around it seemed to be over by the litter pan again. I leaned slightly off to one side and could clearly see the tail and butt-end of the mouse cowering under the lip of the litter pan, apparently hiding from me.

He was still there when I came back from the work bench with a tin can that he pretty much just let me plunk on top of him. He didn’t even try to run away, and after I dumped him into the clear plastic box that we used to take live mice away to the swamp where we released them, he just sat there, not wanting to move. One side of his face looked sort of bashed in. Probably he’d gotten whacked by one of the traps in the basement but somehow managed to not get actually trapped. He obviously wasn’t going to survive, whether or not I released him outside, so I, ah, disposed of him, not without some misgivings. I don’t have much sympathy for mice that invade my house, but I hate to see anything suffer.