We always knew when there were mice in the house. They left droppings in the kitchen that my mother would find. Usually, they would be on top of the sliding cover that was inside what used to be a flour drawer.
We had a green linoleum countertop in our kitchen. It was kind of a cloudy green sort of speckled with lighter green irregular spots. I imagine a lot of houses built in the 1940s and 50s had this kind of countertop. The edge was rimmed with a fluted chrome strip. The strip was screwed into the wooden substrate every foot or so with shiny silver Philips head screws. Above and below this countertop were cabinets made of knotty pine. They didn’t appear to have any kind of stain applied, but they were coated in some kind of clear varnish that made them look a bit satiny. The drawer pulls and handles were simple cast iron strips that had slightly scalloped edges. The scalloped pattern was echoed in a row of short oak planks arranged vertically over the sink. These round-bottom planks were the cornice for the curtains my mother used to look through while standing at the sink cleaning vegetables from the garden or washing dishes. From here she could easily watch me play on the carport, in the gravel driveway or out in the large, grassless area that served as my basketball court. Mom was always watchful and very protective. This is what caused trouble for the mice.
Mice were just about the dirtiest thing my mother could think of and were therefore forever forbidden from being anywhere near the food her children were going to eat. The flour drawer was not used for flour. It was rather a handy little mini-pantry of sorts. Mom kept boxes of pasta, bags of rice and some canned food in that drawer. Mouse droppings on top of the sliding cover meant that mice were plundering in the drawer for food. They had to go.
The preferred method of mouse disposal at my house was the standard Victor wooden spring trap. It was adorned with a big letter “V” in red ink that covered most of the base of the trap. Fastened to this platform were the deadly workings of the trap – a spring, a catch, a bait holder/trigger and the dreaded u-shaped bar. Popped popcorn was the bait of choice. Sometimes it was adorned with a smidge of peanut butter for extra enticement. The trap was set before bedtime and placed in the cabinet just below the flour drawer.
During the night, the intruder would be foraging for food and inevitably find the bait perched temptingly on the trap. This usually happened after we had all gone to bed, but before we were really asleep. Teetering between conscious thought and dreams, we were occasionally startled by the sudden snap of the trap. Mom was always the first one to the kitchen to check for victims. Usually, the trap did its job and the rodent would be expired with its neck crushed by the bar. Occasionally, the mouse would spring the trap and make off with the bait without being caught. I always wished I could witness such a feat, but it was always done in secret so the magic was never discovered.
On one occasion, something happened in between instant death and scot-free escape. The familiar snap sound was followed by a kind of frantic rattling, scuffling sound coming from inside the cabinet door. I jumped out of bed and arrived in the kitchen only moments after my mother got there. I was greeted by a scene that will forever be burned into my brain for as long as I live. Mom was standing there in her long pink nightgown. In her hand was a hammer. Yes, a hammer. She was bent over at the waist peering into the open cabinet door. As I drew closer I could see the trap inside. It was bouncing around the cabinet floor with a particularly unfortunate mouse attached to it. The mouse’s right foreleg had been caught by the bar and it was hopelessly fastened to the base of the trap by the crushing metal bar. The mouse was clearly far from dead. It was seriously wounded, however, and flopping around in Mom’s cabinet making all kinds of racket. Something had to be done. Mom couldn’t let the mouse go. Crippled as it was, it was still a filthy mouse and it had to go. She couldn’t pick up the trap and fling it outside. The mouse was jumping around franticly and it might end up touching her hand if she made a grab for it. This is where the hammer came in. Mom leaned over the bouncing mouse and poised the hammer over its head about two inches. Of course, it was moving up and down and side to side in its efforts to free itself, but in general she was above its head. She waited for what seemed like twenty or thirty seconds and then – at the precise moment of opportunity - tapped the mouse firmly on the skull with the hammer. It was kind of a flicking motion that did not drive the mouse’s head to the floor but rather struck it with a solid clicking noise and then bounced back. What happened to the mouse could be straight out of a cartoon. At the exact moment that the metal hammer head made contact with the furry mouse skull all movement from the mouse stopped. It seemed like it froze the mouse in mid-spasm. It was amazing. It was gruesome and disturbing to be sure, but it was also fascinating how Mom literally “turned off” the mouse with that one well-placed blow. Not nearly as daunted by this skillful display of mouse-slaying prowess as I was, Mom picked up the trap from the end farthest from the mouse with one finger and her thumb and carried it and the dangling frozen body outside to the trash. She came back in and went straight back to bed. I don’t think Dad even woke up.
You might think this story is a little odd and you might even be thinking that Mom was a little bit harsh, but consider this. My mother loved her family and kept them second only to God in her list of priorities. She had a no-nonsense kind of attitude about taking care of her kids. Danger - in all forms - had to be kept at bay. I saw this trait in her mother as well. Some jobs were grim and unpleasant, but it was all part of a mother's duty to her children. Mom passed away in 2005, leaving behind a long string of great memories and valuable lessons for me. Every time I have to chase a spider in the house or clean up after a sick child I lean on those lessons. Thanks, Mom. Thanks for waging war on the mice and making me a better parent in the process.
