Granby
It’s autumn. The aspen leaves have turned yellow and fallen off the trees. Snow covers the high country. And the mousetraps are back in the minivan.
If you have ever had a mouse in your car, you know what I’m talking about. It happens. Rodents are looking for a warm place to spend the winter. Your garage is warm and inviting. It’s only a matter of time before a mouse discovers your car full of tasty Goldfish cracker crumbs and soft cushions.
Standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling display at Toys “R” Us, my 5-year-old daughter advised her brother on lunch boxes.
“You want a hard one a mouse can’t chew through,” she said.
Last fall, a mouse gnawed through her princess lunch box left unattended in the van. It was after the half-eaten Nutter Butter inside. For a week, I had suspected a mouse – tipped off by faint scratching noises, the disconcerting sense I was being watched by beady eyes. The lunch box was the last straw. The mouse might scramble up my pant leg as I drove. Or give the kids hantavirus.
The mouse had to go.
My husband set traps. The next morning, we had caught a field mouse. Problem solved. I congratulated my husband on his nerves of steel. I disinfected the van. But I should have known, nothing is that easy.
A couple of days later, we headed to Denver. A block from home I heard it – faint squeaking coming from the back row of seats folded into the floor. My husband and I recalled the mouse hole gnawed there. We were hearing baby mice, hungry and squeaking for mama.
Horrified, I fought the urge to jump from the van and run away screaming, arms flailing like Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone.” Instead, I turned up the CD player. We drove on, heavy with the knowledge we had murdered a mother mouse. The babies would starve to death. And the really gross part? Their tiny little carcasses were stuck inside the seat.
I was sorry for the doomed babies. As a mom, I felt a pang for the mother mouse who would never see her mouselings grow up. But I was being ridiculous. I refused to feel guilty.
Guilt associated with motherhood seems to be everywhere. Recently on TV, a working mom said she “felt guilty” when she was at work, and she “felt guilty” when she was at home. Stay-at-home moms feel guilty about taking time for themselves, or not contributing to the family’s finances – for failing to sell millions of dollars worth of stuff on eBay. At first, I bought into the mommy-guilt thing. I want what’s best for my family. I’m not perfect. Books like “Perfect Madness” by Judith Warner try to explain. For many American mothers, life isn’t just about balancing family and work but about the pressure to do everything well, especially when it comes to raising kids.
Until a few years ago, our subdivision was nothing but sagebrush. Coyotes yipped in the night as they passed by. More people moved in, and the coyotes moved on, which probably explains the abundance of gophers and voles (think mice without tails) in our yard. Gophers like the disturbed dirt in the flower beds, and the petunias I plant.
The kids have watched us shoo away gophers and trap voles. They have heard me mutter not-so-nice-things. When the kids ask, I explain that the gophers are just trying to survive. After all, it’s the truth. And I see that they are learning a life lesson. They tell their friends. Recently a concerned mother asked me, “Your daughter says you have pack rats?” And I had to admit that I’m not perfect. Yes, there are vermin in our yard.
As summer waned into fall, I realized my war with the gophers was pointless. I decided to go with the flow. I gave up on our small vegetable garden. A delighted gopher immediately moved in, digging a home beneath the pumpkin plant. It quickly devoured what was left of the lettuce. As I watched everything disappear, it was a zen-like lesson in letting go. Picking your battles. Admitting defeat.
Mice in the van, however, is not an option. I vow to do a better job of vacuuming the car. The kids are packing hard-sided lunch boxes. And I refuse to feel guilty about a thing.
Gretchen Bergen is a freelance writer.
