I recently went to a play with a few friends. Little did I know that I would be bringing home a small furry friend, because as nearly as I can now determine, when I set my open purse on the floor an uninvited guest crawled in, only to ride home with me when I left.

I stayed up late reading that night since it was Friday and I had no plans for Saturday which needed me to be awake early. It was around 1:30 a.m. that I started to hear scratching. I ignored it at first but as the noise continued I put my book down, turned the light on my nightstand towards the floor and waited. About 10 minutes later a grey mouse crept from my under my dresser where my purse had been placed and scurried across the room, seeking refuge behind my desk.

I got up and walked into my parents room and told my parents there was a mouse in my room (“There’s a what in your room?”)

We then spent the next few minutes removing everything off from the floor trying to find it. When that failed, I used rolled-up towels to make sure it could not get into my closet or get out of my room, with plans to deal with it in the morning.

I grabbed my blankets, pillows and laptop and went to sleep in “the annex” (my brother’s old bedroom, now my study) across the hall, feeling somewhat defeated, picturing the little mouse snickering in victory at kicking me out of my room. But then just the idea that I would be in my room sleeping while there is a mouse in my room was an entirely another matter.

In the morning when I woke up my father had already gone to the store and purchased several traps. But by this time I was no longer as vindictive as I had been the night before (now that I have gotten some sleep) and was upset to see my father turn my room into `the room of death` as I named it. Instead, I wanted to set up my own trap with a box and bait in order to catch the mouse alive and release in down by the creek near my house. This alternative was promptly shut down and the traps where set up.

(Evidently my father did not remember my brilliance at catching small rodents, having had several pet gophers when I was a child. Sadly my favourite soon found a way out of his cardboard box --I was good at catching them but I evidently never really clued in that they continued to be able to get out of their boxes-- evidently bored with the bedding and food I have placed in it for him. I found him the next day, a victim of the neighbour`s cat.)

I wore skull earrings in protest, figuring that if my room was to become a room of death I might as well dress the part.

When there was nothing in the traps and no evidence that a mouse was even in my room later that night, I was beginning to believe I had just imagined it. But just when I began to fear for my sanity, and compensated by starting to clean my room, I encountered my little friend having succumbed to a snap trap under my vanity.

It’s now a week later, as I reflect and write on these events. I still feel a little like a murderer (actually my father is the murderer, but I am his accomplice) and in a way, I really do miss my little furry friend. But the silence in my room at night now is wonderful and I do sleep very soundly.