Not a creature was lurking
I took Step 2 on Monday. As the name may or may not imply, this is the 2nd part of the licensing exam to become a physician. I studied for about a month for it, doing some reading and a lot of questions. I did well enough on Step 1 that my actual grade on this exam isn't that important, as long as I pass, which is not really a concern for me. Now that I'm done with it I can pretty much take the rest of the year off, as nothing really matters as long as I pass the rest of my rotations.
But back to Step 2. I was planning on going to bed around 11, so I could wake up at 6 and have a good nights sleep. I was watching videos on Youtube right before I was planning on going to bed, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye run across the kitcehn floor. Let me backtrack and mention that I'm subletting an apartment for the month for this rotation, since is the last time I'll be in Philly this year. So I've only been here for a week.
I often see things out of the corner of my eye. I like to chalk this up to having excellent peripheral vision. It also may be partly due to living in the middle of Philadelphia for 4 years where seeing a roach run across the floor was common practice. Anyway, what I may or may not have seen was bigger than any roach I have ever seen, even the radioactive ones at 2100 Walnut Street. It ran behind the refridgerator.
Now, at this point, I have no idea what to do. I'm assuming it was a mouse, although I guess it could have been some kind of opposum or racoon or even a small dark person. But realistically, let's say it was a mouse. I have never seen a mouse before, except for the white ones on TV that are used to feed snakes, or the ones that run across the subway tracks on the 6 line at 91st street. I have never been in the same establishment as one. Well, except that time Minnie Mouse came over and insisted on spending the night.
What are you supposed to do? I really had no idea. I've never experienced it for myself, all I knew is what I've seen on TV and movies, which is pretty much where I learn what to do in every other situation. So basically I had the option of standing on the table and screaming for Jeffrey the butler to do something, or improvising.
I don't know anything about mice. Are they aggressive? If I went into the kitchen, would the mouse stay hidden under the refridgerator, or would it get threatened and try to attack me? That's a serious question that I don't know the answer to. Can mice have rabies? I don't see why not. Maybe normally they're docile, but if it has rabies it might try to bite you. Are they fast? Could I kill it with a broom if I tried? If threatened, can it send out some kind of signal to call for back-up mice to come and help? Ok, the last one wasn't an actual concern, but the rest of them were.
I called the person who I was subletting from to see if they had any advice. He mentioned they did have a mouse once before. Great. That makes it more likely that I actually saw a mouse and it wasn't my imagination. He also mentioned he had same left over traps. In the kitchen. Awesome. I managed to open the cabinet without actually entering the kitchen using the broom handle, and after a lot of hang-wringing and pep-talking, I made it into the kitchen and got the traps.
Setting the traps was another issue. I managed to figure out how to use them after a few minutes, but I'm pretty sure they're not set the way they were originally designed to be. They'll go off if something steps on them, but they just look awkward in the way they're set-up. Another problem was that I didn't have any food to put on the traps. I know they always use cheese in cartoons, but do real mice actually eat cheese? I remember once when I was very young and we thought we had a mouse in our old house, I took a slice of American cheese and put it out on one of the steps, thinking the mouse would come out and start eating it. My grandfather had a good laugh at that one. Either way, I had no cheese in the apartment, or anything else I could use in a trap, so I left them empty, in the only path that a mouse could travel if it was to maneuver around the kitchen.
By this time, it was past midnight, the night before Step 2. I still hadn't actually seen the mouse, and I was starting to wonder if this was all just my mind playing tricks on me. Life is funny sometimes, or all the time if you're me. The night before this important exam, when I wanted to be sleeping or possibly reviewing some last minute things, I was battling wits with a mouse. Of all the days for me to schedule it, of all the places I could have subletted, of all the days the mouse could have ran from the stove to the refridgerator, it happened like this.
I was debating whether I should sleep on the futon in the living room, which is 5 feet from the kitcehn and where I usually sleep, when I heard it scratching. Somehow, I think it got into a vent in one of the kitchen walls, although I haven't yet found a way it could have done that. But I definitely heard it scratching. I wasn't sure if it was scratching to try and break through the vent, or scratching a hole, or an itch, but it was there and it was moving. And I was freaked out. Again, not knowing anything about mice and what it might do or not do if it came out in the middle of the night. And so, I slept in my car.
In retrospect, yeah, maybe it was a stupid idea. I've pretty much been told by everyone I've talked to that it was stupid. But in my defense, I've already explained how little I know about mice. I didn't want to be in an enclosed area with one. Also, the futon is close to the ground, and what if my foot dangled off the bed in the middle of the night? there's also the possibility that the mouse could jump onto the bed, because I don't know if mice jump or not. But the biggest deciding factor was the scratching. I knew I would never fall asleep hearing that all night. And wondering if that scratch was the last one before it broke through the vent. You can't put a price on peace of mind. So I got 3 hours of frequently interrupted sleep in my car. And then went to take my test.
To wrap the story up, I called the property management office and they sent someone over yesterday. they put out some more traps. The food they used? Peanut butter. I guess it makes sense. If the mouse was quick enough, he could grab the cheese and run before the trap hit. But peanut butter is stuck to the trap so it has to stay there to enjoy it. I guess that's why they're the professionals. Anyway, now I guess I just wait and see what happens. I haven't heard any more scratching. I think it's gone, but I don't know where. It never came out again. I can't generalize about all mice, but this one wasn't agressive and never came out. If it comes back, I just have to check all the traps and hope he's in one of them, alive or dead or paralyzed or I don't know what. How to get rid of it is going to be a whole new problem.
But back to Step 2. I was planning on going to bed around 11, so I could wake up at 6 and have a good nights sleep. I was watching videos on Youtube right before I was planning on going to bed, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye run across the kitcehn floor. Let me backtrack and mention that I'm subletting an apartment for the month for this rotation, since is the last time I'll be in Philly this year. So I've only been here for a week.
I often see things out of the corner of my eye. I like to chalk this up to having excellent peripheral vision. It also may be partly due to living in the middle of Philadelphia for 4 years where seeing a roach run across the floor was common practice. Anyway, what I may or may not have seen was bigger than any roach I have ever seen, even the radioactive ones at 2100 Walnut Street. It ran behind the refridgerator.
Now, at this point, I have no idea what to do. I'm assuming it was a mouse, although I guess it could have been some kind of opposum or racoon or even a small dark person. But realistically, let's say it was a mouse. I have never seen a mouse before, except for the white ones on TV that are used to feed snakes, or the ones that run across the subway tracks on the 6 line at 91st street. I have never been in the same establishment as one. Well, except that time Minnie Mouse came over and insisted on spending the night.
What are you supposed to do? I really had no idea. I've never experienced it for myself, all I knew is what I've seen on TV and movies, which is pretty much where I learn what to do in every other situation. So basically I had the option of standing on the table and screaming for Jeffrey the butler to do something, or improvising.
I don't know anything about mice. Are they aggressive? If I went into the kitchen, would the mouse stay hidden under the refridgerator, or would it get threatened and try to attack me? That's a serious question that I don't know the answer to. Can mice have rabies? I don't see why not. Maybe normally they're docile, but if it has rabies it might try to bite you. Are they fast? Could I kill it with a broom if I tried? If threatened, can it send out some kind of signal to call for back-up mice to come and help? Ok, the last one wasn't an actual concern, but the rest of them were.
I called the person who I was subletting from to see if they had any advice. He mentioned they did have a mouse once before. Great. That makes it more likely that I actually saw a mouse and it wasn't my imagination. He also mentioned he had same left over traps. In the kitchen. Awesome. I managed to open the cabinet without actually entering the kitchen using the broom handle, and after a lot of hang-wringing and pep-talking, I made it into the kitchen and got the traps.
Setting the traps was another issue. I managed to figure out how to use them after a few minutes, but I'm pretty sure they're not set the way they were originally designed to be. They'll go off if something steps on them, but they just look awkward in the way they're set-up. Another problem was that I didn't have any food to put on the traps. I know they always use cheese in cartoons, but do real mice actually eat cheese? I remember once when I was very young and we thought we had a mouse in our old house, I took a slice of American cheese and put it out on one of the steps, thinking the mouse would come out and start eating it. My grandfather had a good laugh at that one. Either way, I had no cheese in the apartment, or anything else I could use in a trap, so I left them empty, in the only path that a mouse could travel if it was to maneuver around the kitchen.
By this time, it was past midnight, the night before Step 2. I still hadn't actually seen the mouse, and I was starting to wonder if this was all just my mind playing tricks on me. Life is funny sometimes, or all the time if you're me. The night before this important exam, when I wanted to be sleeping or possibly reviewing some last minute things, I was battling wits with a mouse. Of all the days for me to schedule it, of all the places I could have subletted, of all the days the mouse could have ran from the stove to the refridgerator, it happened like this.
I was debating whether I should sleep on the futon in the living room, which is 5 feet from the kitcehn and where I usually sleep, when I heard it scratching. Somehow, I think it got into a vent in one of the kitchen walls, although I haven't yet found a way it could have done that. But I definitely heard it scratching. I wasn't sure if it was scratching to try and break through the vent, or scratching a hole, or an itch, but it was there and it was moving. And I was freaked out. Again, not knowing anything about mice and what it might do or not do if it came out in the middle of the night. And so, I slept in my car.
In retrospect, yeah, maybe it was a stupid idea. I've pretty much been told by everyone I've talked to that it was stupid. But in my defense, I've already explained how little I know about mice. I didn't want to be in an enclosed area with one. Also, the futon is close to the ground, and what if my foot dangled off the bed in the middle of the night? there's also the possibility that the mouse could jump onto the bed, because I don't know if mice jump or not. But the biggest deciding factor was the scratching. I knew I would never fall asleep hearing that all night. And wondering if that scratch was the last one before it broke through the vent. You can't put a price on peace of mind. So I got 3 hours of frequently interrupted sleep in my car. And then went to take my test.
To wrap the story up, I called the property management office and they sent someone over yesterday. they put out some more traps. The food they used? Peanut butter. I guess it makes sense. If the mouse was quick enough, he could grab the cheese and run before the trap hit. But peanut butter is stuck to the trap so it has to stay there to enjoy it. I guess that's why they're the professionals. Anyway, now I guess I just wait and see what happens. I haven't heard any more scratching. I think it's gone, but I don't know where. It never came out again. I can't generalize about all mice, but this one wasn't agressive and never came out. If it comes back, I just have to check all the traps and hope he's in one of them, alive or dead or paralyzed or I don't know what. How to get rid of it is going to be a whole new problem.
posted by Chris at 6:14 PM
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