I’m back in Virginia for winterbreak, at least briefly. I was sleeping at my parent’s last night, in the upstairs living room. I know they have mice, I’d seen a couple in the basement. And I really like mice. So when I heard one in the kitchen I went to go look at it. And good thing I did, because apparently my parents put a glue trap on the kitchen counter (which wasn’t there earlier when I cooked dinner). I had seen a box of them on the counter and wrote a note on it about how using them was murder. BUt so this poor mouse was stuck in the glue. I went and woke my mom up yelling at her, she said to get my dad- but his solution would be stomping on it, so i went upstairs to figure out what to do. It was not an option in my head for the mouse to die. I picked up one of the glue trap boxes, and it had advice on how to get the glue off of you if you accidentally got it on. It said use cooking oil. So i grabbed the bottle of veggie oil, and poured a bit into the tray of glue, and tilted it so it covered all of the glue. In his struggles the mouse started to unstick! So I added a little more, trying to tilt it under him when he started getting parts unstuck. Then my mom came and was like hey- do that outside ( I was doing it on the kitchen floor). I picked the tray up and put it on the porch. And while I watched the little feller got completely unstuck and ran off! It was awesome!!!

The lesson here being that if you find an animal stuck on a glue trap it is not the end of it. Depending on the brand veggie oil might just work to unstick it. I threw out the boxes of glue traps at my parents house. I told my mom how it was not cool to murder another being simply because it is an inconvenience. And for christ’s sake- if you are going to kill it, don’t use a glue trap. They induce so much panic, and then the animal either starves to death or gives itself a heartattack. totally fucked.

THe whole concept of murdering somebeing because it is a nuisance to you is atrocious. Not to mention the idea that many ‘pests’ can be limited in the presence by basic things like cleaning your counters and not leaving food out. My family always leaves dirty dishes on the counter overnight and food everywhere. Which encourages mice and other animals to come feed. It doesn’t make sense to kill them because you can’t handle doing the dishes. It is another example of how humans in the Western world have been socialized to find solutions to problems that do not address some of the root causes of the problems- god forbid we alter our own behavior and habits and lifestyles- we just take it out on other animals and the planet. RIDICULOUS! and immoral and unethical.

Another interesting part of this scenario is that earlier in the evening my mom and I had been watching a CSI show that involved dog fighting. She couldn’t watch during the dog fight scenes- she hates dog fights. Just an example of how certain species are privileged over others in many human’s minds. Dogs should not be treated cruelly, but mice are not to worry about. My mom accused me anthropomorphising the mice this morning, which is ridiculous because she anthropomorphizing dogs all of time.