Shakespeare For The Modern Woman

Lonie Polony! Beware the ides of March, for that is the day on which a disgusting find in your kitchen will make your stomach turn and give you the long-term heebie-jeebies.

Okay, so no-one jumped out of the pantry and tried to assassinate me, but in my opinion, finding what I suspect to be animal droppings on my kitchen bench is pretty bad. I readily admit I’m far from the most assiduous housekeeper, but I wouldn’t say the place has quite gone to the dogs yet; unfortunately it looks like it’s gone to the mice.

My only small comfort, which I keep repeating out loud to myself as I rock back and forth sucking my thumb, is that I hadn’t noticed the nasty little pellets before today (and yes, I did clean yesterday, smartypants) so let’s all just humour me and agree that last night was our very first (and hopefully last) visit from…whatever it was.

Noticing the curious black calling-card as I wiped down the bench, my Self-Preservation made a valiant attempt at preventing a neurotic meltdown, suggesting it may have been the wizened end of a banana or some currants I’d spilled. Reason turned a blind eye, and they would have gotten away with it too if it hadn’t been for that pesky second dropping.

Rudely thrust out of the blissful state of denial, I spent the next several minutes gazing in horror at Google’s offering of mouse dropping images, desperately hoping the foreign coin used as a scale to demonstrate the difference between mouse and rat pooh was larger than it seemed, because rat scat is worse than a house mouse. And after reading stories of people poisoned by mouse pooh and the horrible details of their demise, and descending into the kind of jumpiness one only expects in lunatics, I decided it was time to bundle the children out of the house and bring down some murine death.

I briefly considered a cat, but opted for a disposable trap which is supposed to enclose and conceal the little corpse, obviously designed for squeamish types like me who don’t want visual evidence they’ve just killed a furry animal they actually find quite cute when it’s not scuttling about the house at night spreading all sorts of diseases. One of the traps was accidentally set off as I decided how to position it for maximum murderous effect, and by golly it was loud. Now I have two conflicting dreads: hearing that horrible noise in the night, or not hearing it and finding more droppings tomorrow.

With an imminent return to work, childcare guilt, a crappy haircut, and legions of spiders and bugs that already torment me with their choice of abode, I hardly need anything else grabbing hold of my delicate nerves to stretch them even more uncomfortably taut. Et tu, Mickey?