Eek! A mouse? Not in this house!

Even as I go through the steps, the carefully thought-out steps, I know this is a cockamamie plan. But I see no alternative.

So here, in the field, in the pitch dark of 4 a.m., I bend over and — slowly, slowly — aim the flashlight down, hold my breath, and lift the pasta pot up off the dustpan. Feet, legs, arms squeezed tight, leaning far over and forward, I spotlight the mousetrap lying there.

Slowly I exhale: thank heavens. The mouse is still trapped. He’s holding very still, hoping I won’t notice him, which of course, is ridiculous.

His right rear leg is caught in the black plastic jaws of the mousetrap and he can’t get out, so now, here, trapped, lying on the yellow dustpan, spotlighted by the flashlight, in the field in the wee hours of the morning, he’s trying to hide.

Stupid mouse. This whole nightmare began a half-hour ago, when I woke to noises in the kitchen. It sounded like my dogs were eating out of their metal bowls, and since both dogs were in my bedroom I figured it was a mouse, helping himself. We’ve had a couple of sightings but no captures yet, so I got up to investigate and put away any leftover dog food. But the bowls were empty, of both food and rodents, and I stood, looking around, for the source of the continued tap-tapping.

I saw the lurching out of the

corner of my eye and froze as the mousetrap scooted slowly across the floor. Oh, my gosh, a live mouse stuck in a trap in my kitchen at 4 a.m.! Augh!!

Horrified, I tried to figure out what to do. I want the mouse (and all his little friends) gone, and I set out the traps, but — groan — I don’t want to actually murder this one, not myself, directly, with my hands. Besides, how — urk — would I do it? Smack him hard with … a hammer? A wooden spoon? Step on him? Ooh, the very thought, the anticipation of the soft crunch, makes me shiver.

I could leave the mouse where he is, stuck in the trap, until my husband comes home, and let him deal with it. But I don’t like that option either. I want the mouse gone, not trapped in my kitchen all through tonight and tomorrow, hours and hours and hours. And — yeesh, really, he’s a dog-food stealing rodent, but I don’t want him to suffer.

So, standing alone in my kitchen, nobody else awake, nobody else providing ideas, there is only one solution: free the mouse. Outside. The field, I decide. It’s a large neighborhood commons area, across and down the street, a distance that, maybe, hopefully, the mouse won’t travel again.

And so here I am. In the field, at 4 a.m. I’ve got a lanyard with a house key around my neck, Jack the dog for safety, I’ve got a dustpan underneath the mouse in his trap, and I just removed the pasta pot, which I nervously popped on top just in case the mouse suddenly jerked himself free and chose to run up my arm. I’ve got a flashlight and a long metal gripper tool, and have paraded this whole random, frantic assortment across the street and down the hill and into the field.

I turn to Jack and say, “I’m going to let him go now,” talking myself into it. Slowly, slowly I extend the stick and press, and … there! The mousetrap opens, the mouse extracts his leg, and off he walks into the damp grass. I train the flashlight’s beam and watch him scramble away. When he’s good and gone I pick up my stick, my dustpan, my pasta pot. I wedge the flashlight firmly under my arm and pick up Jack’s leash.

“And don’t come back!” I call quietly over my shoulder as, tired and relieved, I go back home: my cockamamie plan worked.

Lianne Wilkens lives with her family in Manassas. She can be reached at .