The Best Time I Found a Dead Mouse

by Rebecca Lessem

The first apartment I lived in after moving to New York was notable for its high square footage, low ceiling, and even lower (5’8”) overhang. But it worked for me because I am 5’4” and cheap.

Before I brought a guy home, I’d have to mentally assess his height and make sure he’d fit. Enough (cough) men had forgotten about the overhang that there was a round indentation where they hit their heads on the way out, so I put a fluffy white rug right inside my room to try to remind them to pay attention.

The guy I was dating at the time, my first real New York boyfriend, was 5’11.” Throughout our relationship, he witnessed the flooding of the apartment from construction above, innumerable cockroaches, passive aggressive dish-washing standoffs, and a rotating assortment of furniture we found on the street. But never a mouse.

One Friday night, while he was over at my place (why did we ever come to my gross place?), we were sitting in my bed and talking about plans to see a movie that weekend and then he dumped me out of the blue. He was such a jerk in the process that I was grateful to have dodged a bullet. Some of his more choice words were: “I haven’t cheated or anything. But you know, I think I probably will soon.”

He left (I like to think he hit his head one last time on his way out, but I don’t remember), and I stayed in bed, dazed but not really upset about what had happened.

The next morning when I woke up, I noticed a dark spot in the exact center of my white rug — a tiny, perfect, curled-up, brownish gray mouse.

It was lying on its side with its tail wrapped up between its front paws. It was so small and so vulnerable and so dead. I thought about how it had found my comfortable rug in its final moments, picturing it dragging itself across my floor, all alone, looking for the right place to give up and die.

And how the last night I’d been all alone, curled up on my side in the center of my bed.

Between sobs, I called my friend who lived around the corner since my roommate was away and I clearly could not handle this alone. ALONE! I was all alone.

Her: Hello?
Me: There’s a mouse! And it’s deeeaaaaaaaaddddd. [Sob sob sob.]
Her: What? Where are you?
Me: Can you come over? Also, J dumped me.

She agreed, and once she got to my apartment she thought the best way to pick this thing up was to try to use one magazine to shovel it on to the other.

As she was attempting the maneuver, the little mouse moved one of its little legs in a little circle as if it was biking. My friend yelped and dropped the two magazines, and the mouse and beat a hasty retreat to the hall.

My friend was not OK with a live mouse. I was not ok with a dead mouse. This one was somewhere in between.

Once I saw that leg move, the whole experience changed for me. A live mouse wasn’t an omen, it was a task. I was suddenly a person who could cope with things again.

I trapped the mouse with a Tupperware and slid a magazine under it. Then I brought the whole shebang out into the backyard weed jungle, and I dumped him.

Rebecca Lessem lives in Brooklyn where she develops educational software and mostly shops online. She likes her mammals alive.

Photo by Melinda Fawver, via Shutterstock