In which I discover a limit

[radegund]

I'm not a squeamish person. Compost delights me. I'll cheerfully clear out a blocked drain. As an emo teenager I once lay in bed and watched as ants devoured a dead woodlouse on my bedroom carpet. More recently, I developed the conviction that childbirth and early parenthood had cauterised whatever vestiges of perturbability remained to me (though I'll admit I have been known to scream at surprise poo).

Turns out I was wrong. For lo, I can be squicked. Yesterday lunchtime, I encountered a circumstance so grim that it left me gasping and retching and needing a sit-down all on my own before I could function again.

I had sliced a bagel and brought it to the toaster, which is in the corner of the counter. I reached over to stick the bagel halves into the slots, and as I withdrew my hand, one finger brushed against something. For a few seconds I couldn't even parse the sensation - it was so utterly out of place. But then I did, and I looked, and I lost it.

What I had felt was fur - fine, soft, silky fur. The fur of a tiny mouse, who had, it seemed, climbed into the bowels of the toaster looking for crumbs and met its grisly fate as it climbed out again.



There was no visible injury, so either it somehow electrocuted itself, or - and this is what really turns my stomach - it was in there when Niall made toast first thing in the morning, and died trying to escape the heat.

This brings the autumn's body count to two (or possibly three, if a suspicious smell is what we think it is), plus two caught in humane traps and released well away from the house. We usually get a few mice when the weather turns cold, because our ramshackle, lean-to kitchen is full of holes. (Did you know mice have amazingly flexible skeletons? Apparently they can get through a gap the thickness of a biro.) But this definitely wins the prize for most outré method of dispatch.

We have bought a new toaster.

Comments

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Why did I look? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Curiosity killed the ... oh, wait.

[jinxremoving.livejournal.com]

I knew what this was going to involve. Maybe I should do a poll to find out how common mice dying in toasters is.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Wow. Weird!

[ailbhe]

I'd have screamed, and I would really have been really sick if I thought it had been near the actual, you know, TOAST. *shudder*.

Oh, damn. I'm shuddering in real life. Yay.

Thank gods we have cats.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Luckily I noticed it before starting to toast. The PERFECTLY GOOD and untainted bagel sat on the counter all day until I conceded that I wasn't going to be able to bring myself to eat it (we happily grilled its brothers), then went in the bin.

Sorry about the shuddering! Unny has been reminding me recently about our agreement that when the new extension is built, we'll talk about getting a cat...

[ailbhe]

I imagine I'm shuddering less than you did.

Will you have a nanny ga doh?

[socmot.livejournal.com]

Rodents? Not great.
Cockroaches....watch me scream!

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I'm not actually frightened of mice, as such. But IN MY TOASTER is a different matter.

Cockroaches, well, I haven't seen enough of them to know my habitual reaction.

[kasku.livejournal.com]

Same with me! I actually used to have pet mice as a child, although dead ones brought as gifts by the cats are not really very appreciated.

Cockroaches are vile things. : /

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ditto. Mice, fine. Dead mouse in toaster: GOOD GOD REALLY NOT FINE AAAAARGH.

Cockroaches don't bother me (though I wouldn't be happy about a dead one in my toaster, either), and that counts the "giant", flying Australian cockroaches (I put "giant" in inverted commas because I always thought they were normal until European visitors freaked out at them - I find European cockroaches weirdly small). In fact, I'm fine with anything creepy crawly except spiders.

[blue-monday.livejournal.com]

Aaaiiieeee! Ick.

I ... would possibly have thrown the toaster out the kitchen window if I found something like that. Spiders I dislike but can deal with (hoover normally), but rodents... ugh.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

See, I'm not usually that bothered by mice. Dead in my toaster is a step too far, though :-)

[stellanova.livejournal.com]

Urrrrrrrrrgh! I would have got hysterical, what a horrible discovery.

But I feel sorry for the poor little mouse, frazzled to death in the cause of toast!

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I was kind of verging on hysteria - but had to hold back, because I REALLY didn't want to explain to Oisín what was upsetting me! And I also feel sorry for the poor little mouse, despite being engaged in a war of attrition with its kind.

[sshi.livejournal.com]

Aiiiiiiii! I'm glad I had finished my breakfast before I looked.

My father tells a story of finding one inside a cash register, curled up in a little ball and completely electrocuted...

[radegund.livejournal.com]

See, the cash register mouse I can just feel sorry for. My feelings about Toaster Mouse are ... more complex :-)

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Ahahah, that doesn't bother me at all. I mean, I'm sure I'd have had the moment of gross-out shock when I first perceived it, but then it would have fascinated me. The only time a dead mammal bothered me was when one of my parents' cats brought one in and deposited it on the hall floor. I stepped over it and left it for my mum to clear up, because I was fourteen and that's what fourteen year olds do. Only, when I came back out of the shower, what I had taken to be its entrails were significantly farther from its body than they had been: it was quite long dead, and full of maggots.

The last time I had the full-on material-in-its-incorrect-place shock was when I found something that resembled a slug or pure slime on a salad. But it turned out to be a bit of henna that had dripped off Glitz's head.

[barsine.livejournal.com]

The first time I ate dinner with Eoin's parents there was a big slug slithering around on my freshly-picked from the garden salad. I like slugs a LOT less than other insects, but I managed to retain my composure and just took it outside on its leaf of lettuce. But urrgh.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, urrgh, yes. You sure it wasn't a Girlfriend Stamina Test, though?

[radegund.livejournal.com]

It did kind of fascinate me too, afterwards. (Like, enough to take pictures and such!) The way it was wedged in the gap was pretty interesting. But I didn't touch it again. Not even with gloves. And when Niall suggested getting a new toaster, I said yes without hesitating.

Re henna-slug on salad: AHAHAHAHAHA! I remember finding a suspicious glob of it on the shower door, Back In The Day, and going UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH OMG ELEVENTY-UGH before figuring out what it must be :-)

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

sorry!

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha. The thought of you apologising to me about a state-of-the-house matter is ... ver' ver' amusing :-)

[ailbhe]

(1) I am much more squeamish about hygiene-related stuff since having babies, and (2) EW the henna-blob EW GROSS. Henna stinks, too.

[felinitykat]

When we had mice in the last house I shared with friends, they all made a beeline for the toaster. We never had a treat quite like yours, but my housemate GJ had to take the whole toaster outside once in order to get a mouse out of the house.

I never looked at toast quite the same way, after that.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Well, now that I know about this, I suspect I won't either. It must've been in and out of there all the time, when I think about it.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Aaaaargh. You know I am irrationally scared of mice, but still, I think that counts as squickworthy.

Hmm, new kitchen with fewer holes?

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I reckon it gets an official squickworthiness certificate, all right!

NEW KITCHEN PLZ! Soon. Soon.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, he does LOOK a bit toasted, doesn't he? I suppose they go in for the crumbs.

I am so glad I don't have a toaster.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, I bet it had been in and out of there loads before its luck ran out. I'm toying with locking the new toaster in a lead-lined casket when not in use.

Waitaminnit. No toaster? But how? How do you make toast?

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I have a cooker. It has a grill!

[(Anonymous)]

THANK YOU! People think I'm a right Luddite because I also do not have a toaster (which would be something else taking up limited space in my small kitchen), just the grill. Which I never have to de-jam or un-mouse.

[merryhouse.livejournal.com]

me too - it toasts much more evenly.

Seems to take a long time though... we really need another rack position just for toast.

[felinitykat]

We didn't have a toaster in our last (very very tiny) house due to lack of space in the kitchen. I did miss it though -- grilling toast is fine and dandy and works and everything, but it's much more of a faff than just sticking bread in a toaster. Plus if you're grilling frozen bread then the bottom half of it goes all soggy while you're grilling the top half, and you get a little grill indentation on it.

[merryhouse.livejournal.com]

you have to start it off on Absolute Minimum for a short while on each side.

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Eee!

[kasku.livejournal.com]

Wonderful icon! : D

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Thank you :-)

[pisica.livejournal.com]

I'd be squicked too. Dead mouse - not really a problem (though I freaked out when Perdita was playing with a live one, but it was dark and I didn't have my glasses on so I only saw something moving). Dead mouse in a food-preparation device - big problem.

I have noticed a distinct lack of mice these last couple of years (except that she delivered one on each of the last two Boxing Days). Maybe you could acquire a cat?

[iuil.livejournal.com]

Mouse droppings in my kitchen - I scrubbed with bleach, threw out any open packets of food and laid poison.

Live mouse, in my living room, grooming its whiskers - I ignored it and laid more poison.

Live mouse running around the bottom of my laundry basket - I removed the basket to the outdoors and hoped the neighbours' cat enjoyed it.

Dead mouse (from the poison) in front of my washing machine - I called DH to deal with it.

A dead mouse in my toaster, probably having touched my food - I think I'd have to be sedated