CHAPTER 24

2025-2-13

There was no trace of mice in the past two weeks. The two remaining members of the Rat Patrol Team, i.e., my son and I are quite satisfied.

My wife was born in the year of the mouse and she feared it the most. Yet she was forced to live with mice under the same roof in the last fourteen months of the thirty-six years of living in Vancouver.

On a late night in spring two years ago, we planned to rest a bit before sleeping, after luggage packaging for our flight to Osaka the next morning. I was sitting on the sofa watching TV. All of a sudden, right before my eyes a black spot as big as a table tennis ball sped from the left side of the TV stand, splinting towards the bookshelves at the wall, and disappeared under the shoe shelves next to the front door.

More than thirty years, that was the first time I saw with my eyes that mouse running around openly in my home. My immediate thought was that global warming favored the survival of mice. So they expanded their territories! Then it was not strange that my son complained about hearing squeaking noises at night in the past few weeks and dark spots flashed past the corners of my eyes. Those were real things and were animals.

Instinctively I confirmed that it was a mouse, a highly intelligent small mammal. I shivered. It had fur and a tail and ran like flying. They were extremely hard to get rid of once they multiplied, especially if they chose to settle in my home. Choosing to show up the night before our far away trip was the worst. Starting from the following day in the coming two weeks my son would be left alone guarding our home from the mice all by himself.

Since I saw it with my eyes, I had to tell my wife and my son. My wife became very nervous since she was always scared of creatures like snakes, bugs and mice. It happened a few months later, she screamed and tripped onto the carpet floor after seeing a mouse running alongside the floor of the sliding door. Luckily she was not hurt. Just by knowing the presence of mice inside our home on that night, we all could not sleep well. Because of this, in order to prevent her from getting bad sleep, I reported the traits of mice to her selectively.

Coincidentally, the mice were particularly reckless. Even after my warning to them by tapping on the walls, they made more noises by biting and running up and down the inside of the partition between the kitchen and the living room. Once showing up after thirty years of absence, they ruined our happy mood for the tour. Luckily my son was strong enough. He was only annoyed, but not scared. He and I did our best removing the scrappy items. My wife and I flew to Osaka as planned the next day. After arrival we connected with my son. He placed mouse traps at the suspected spots frequented by mice. With a heavy duty stapler and wires for raising chickens, a few exits were blocked. A few days later we received from him a photo of a dead mouse clipped by a trap.

Upon our return to home after the trip, specialists from pest control were called to place traps inside our home. We were told of a reason for the increase of mice. It was because the most effective and toxic mice killing drug was banned by the government. Mice started multiplying along with their super vitality. They frequented more in the open.

In the last fourteen months of togetherness with my wife, a group of mice and their unique annoyance were added to our lives. At the same time funny memories went along with them.