I don’t like animals being killed. I can’t stand the thought of animals and fish being murdered because I want something on my plate ~ to quote the great Sir Paul McCartney “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, nobody would eat meat.” It’s also partly about how meat made me feel when I ate it, kind of heavy and like I had rocks in my guts, the learning about how meat makes it onto our plates, was the push I needed, I was done eating meat. Nope. No thank you, not participating in that industry anymore.
I’m not afraid of death, and I understand that sometimes death is the best, most merciful thing that can happen. Our pets have this luxury, and in about 10 states in the U.S, a peaceful and loving goodbye to the rainbow bridge if too old, or too sick, and have lost all control over their bodies, at a time most convenient for you and your loved ones…
It was Spring and Cafe Lago was lakefront, staff parking was a block or so away, so walking along the lake in the morning seeing the sky beginning to change and the clouds, and the lake and mountains resplendent in the changing colors of a new day. Feeling that even though I was at work at 5:30 am, it was a special time to see the lake and the mountains, and I was grateful to witness the earth so beautifully unfolding with the seasons and light every day, as it had done every single day, whether someone was there to marvel at it or not. That was so inspiring and beautiful and once it occurred to me that I would have missed it if I wasn’t going to work, I looked forward to my opening shifts. In case you don’t know Lake Wanaka, it has probably the most photographed tree in New Zealand. (above).
Obviously, I believe in supporting the life of all sentient beings, I’ll even save spiders and centipedes. I was already quite “sensitive” to the plight of other life forms as I was growing up but, I’ve noticed since becoming a mother, my empathy for all beings, especially mothers, of all kinds and species has become more finely tuned and more compassionate, it’s a lot to deal with.
There had been evidence of rodents in the dry storage pantry at the back of the kitchen which was long and narrow, so Kelly our cook, had been sent out the day before to buy some mouse traps, you know the 6 packs that they come in, he returned with one large rat trap, which is a whole lot bigger, and with the 23 y/o logic of “if we have rats we don’t want to piss them off with a weeny mouse trap.” He apparently had a fear of rats. None of us thought it was rats. I was leaving for the afternoon, so I left it for Kirsten to deal with.
Kirsten, our head chef, and kitchen manager let out a big sigh and rolled her eyes. “Guess it will have to do, for now. I’ll get mousetraps on my way in tomorrow. Ya big dummy.”
Kirsten and Kelly had worked together for a couple of years and they knew each other pretty well, she had taught him how to cook in the Lago kitchen and he had worked his way from dishwasher to cook. They were funny together, like a little brother/ big sister duo, that picked at and harassed each other in the downtime but worked together as a perfect team during the busiest parts of the day.
With horror, Kelly and I found a mouse trapped in a rat trap when we were opening the next morning, we could hear faint peeping sounds coming from the back of the kitchen, that were so soft and in the background that you find yourself listening to them for quite a few minutes before questioning the origin, Kelly thought it was the gas grill heating up or something from the front. Turned out the weak squeaking noises were coming from the rat trap. I heard Kelly yell, “oh shit!” then “Uh, Bridget? Can you come in here?”
I had no idea what was up, but the tone of his voice was one I had not heard before, so I put down what I was doing and went into the kitchen.
There was one tiny little mouse, dwarfed by the huge rat trap, caught exactly in the middle by the giant spring-loaded bar. Its spine was obviously broken as it could not move its body from where it was pinned to the board by the giant spring-loaded bar, it’s tail and legs were lifeless, a trail of dried shit behind it, violently squashed out its body, and its little head and front paws, however, were still moving, and it would periodically raise its head and paw the air like it was trying to gain footing to escape, then it would lay back down breathing heavily.
“Oh shit,” Kelly said again, “what should we do?” We both watched the little animal struggling and felt hopeless for a moment, desperately thinking of a solution, I knew what we had to do. “We have to kill it,” I said ruefully, looking at him.
“Oh shit,” he said again, he could not take his eyes off it.
We couldn’t let it go, it was seriously injured and who knew how long it had been there struggling or how close it was to death. This mouse was never going to make a full recovery.
I looked at Kelly, with a lump in my throat and repeated. “We have to kill it.”
“Oh god,” Kelly said taking a step back, “I don’t want to cut its head off,”
“Geez Kelly, there are other ways to kill things,” I replied, mildly concerned that he immediately thought the best way to kill it would be to cut its head off. I couldn’t think of other ways right then, but I knew there were some. Let’s face it, it’s not often in life you have to think about the best way to kill a furry little animal.
“We could put it in a plastic bag so it suffocates?” he offered.
“Oh god, no, that’s awful too.”
We looked at each other still racking our brains for the best way to kill a mouse.
“We could drown it,” I suggested, thinking of the best way to not fail or cause blood and guts to be spattered everywhere.
“There’s a bucket in the back,” Kelly sprang up from where we had been squatting over the mouse in the trap, and headed towards the back of the kitchen, I started running the water at the dish station. He came back with the big white bucket used for cleaning. “What are you doing?” he asked as I was running my hand under the water waiting for it to warm up.
It occurred to me how futile it was to worry that the water the mouse was going to die in was a comfortable temperature. I just looked at him and felt my eyes welling with burning tears. “I don’t want the water to be too cold.” He didn’t say anything but nodded grimly.
We put the bucket on the ground and looked at each other. “Are you going to pick it up?” Kelly asked me wide-eyed. Before I had a chance to answer he said, “because I can’t,”
“Ok, but you deal with the body afterward,” I replied, while thinking, well, there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear myself say.
“Ok,” he agreed.
Then, “Do you think you should just open the trap and let it fall in?”
“Good grief, No! What if it doesn’t sink? What if it swims?” I had nightmarish visions of the paralyzed mouse doing a version of the doggy paddle with its lifeless back half trailing behind it.
“Oh my god, Kelly.”
I felt like I might be sick. I reached for the rat trap, and carefully picked it up so the mouse lay on it like a horrible torturous bed. By this time the mouse had given up and was just laying there breathing heavily, half of its tiny body trembling, the other half limp and lifeless, its nose and ears twitching like it was praying for an end to this.
Tears were making my vision blurry,“ I’m sorry buddy, it’ll all be over soon.” I didn’t care what Kelly thought at that point, holy crap I was about to kill an animal. In my wildest dreams, I hadn’t imagined I’d be mercy-killing a mouse when I got to work that morning.
I gently placed the trap into the bucket, and as it sunk into the warm water, the mouse didn’t struggle, and actually looked like it relaxed. Kelly and I watched with the sort of morbid fascination that keeps you staring at a car accident as you drive by. The trap sunk to the bottom of the bucket and the mouse kept its eyes open. Small bubbles rose to the surface.
Then they stopped.
“Do you think it’s dead?” asked Kelly, I nodded.
“Maybe we should leave it in there a little bit longer just to make sure.” There was something in his voice that made me look at him, Kelly had tears running down his face too, “don’t tell anyone,” he said wiping his face, I wasn’t sure if he meant that we’d killed a mouse or that he was crying about it. At least one of those two things a 23-year-old doesn’t want to be known for.
“Agreed,” I said wiping my own tears, “let us never speak of this again.”
He nodded. And we went on with the busy work of opening the cafe, me in front of house, while he did the kitchen stuff.
Usually, we would have a brief discussion about the music we played while setting up, and we would play it loud. I liked opening with Kelly, we were both familiar with our roles and inevitably got everything done quickly, we would drink triple flat whites and talk about the universe, music, dark matter, concerts, festivals, drugs, and life in general.
On that day we worked in silence until it was time to open. Both lost in thoughts of life and death.
Kelly got rid of the body with the trap, and we never spoke to each other about it again.
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