家里来了个不速之客——一只老鼠。全家人绞尽脑汁想清除它：用免诱饵捕鼠器？不行，会致老鼠于死地，太残忍；用超声波的噪音让老鼠崩溃掉？不行，太不仁道。最后我们用一种新型鼠夹活捉了老鼠，并大发慈悲把它放生了。

By Marcel Strigberger

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A mouse recently moved into my house.

I had not seen a real live mouse since my formative years in Montreal. In the 1950s, a mouse in a downtown Montreal tenement was about as commonplace as a smoked meat sandwich. You wouldn’t think of complaining to the landlord. The answer would be: “Why are you telling me? Am I a cat?”

This uninvited guest did not sit too well with my wife Shoshana or my daughter Natalie. Upon seeing the mouse running across our kitchen, Natalie discreetly brought the incident to my attention.

“Eee! A mouse!” she screamed.

This was followed seconds later by Shoshana pointing at me and shrieking: “Do something, now!”

I was at a total loss. This was certainly not something they had taught me to handle in law school. I pleaded for sanity. “Relax, we’ll go to Home Depot and see what’s available.”

I urged my wife and daughter to be calm, aloof and methodical. That worked perfectly. Seven minutes later we were at Home Depot.

We examined the options. When I was a kid there was one mice solution: a wooden mousetrap. You’d insert a piece of cheese and pull back the bar. If a mouse approached and so much as sniffed the enticing cheese, the bar would come down on its head with a force rivaling the impact that hit Marie Antoinette.

This same trap is still on sale. But now you don’t need the cheese. The package, in fact, boasts, “Never needs cheese.” Instead there is a yellow, plastic-looking square that resembles a luscious piece of Emmenthal.

My daughter had different ideas. “This is violent. That bar can smash the poor mouse’s neck.”

I realized I was dealing with a closet member of PETA. “Okay,” I said, “let’s look for something more humane.”

I was on the spot. What did the ladies expect? Maybe I should just buy a bullhorn and try to negotiate. “Hey mouse, you have 60 seconds to come out. If you don’t we send in Felix.”

Had I bought those pellets, I was certain that in addition to any other sanctions my wife would have imposed on me, both she and my daughter would have initiated steps to have me tried at The Hague.

Natalie then picked up something interesting—an ultrasound device. You plug it in near the mouse hole and it makes some type of pitched noise that only mice can hear. It’s supposed todrive them nuts, and they flee.

Nataliewas all for it, but I vetoed the idea. For years, my kids have driven me crazy with their loud music. Now I empathize with the mouse. Furthermore, I had no doubt this form of warfare was banned by the Geneva Conventions.

As we were about to leave in frustration (I was, anyway), we noticed something called a live trap. It was a device whereby you catch the mouse, then release it alive.

The trap was an oblong box. You open a little door, put in some real bait and wait. The vote was unanimous.

We set up the apparatus that night. I figured I would get a good night’s sleep. Then again, the Titanic figured it was unsinkable. At 2:30 a.m., Natalie woke me up saying: “I think there is a mouse in that trap.”

“That might not totally surprise me,” I retorted. “I’ll inspect it in the morning, and if we have a guest I’ll release him then.”

It was not so simple.

“No way,” Natalie said. “You can’t just leave it stuck there all night. It’ll get scared.”

Suddenly I had to worry about that mouse getting a neurosis. I was outside my house in my bathrobe at 2:45 a.m. There was definitely something alive in that box. I walked to the nearby park, bent down and opened the little door. Out shot a mouse like a speeding bullet. Mission accomplished.

I sauntered back into the house.

“Aren’t you happy you didn’t kill it?” Natalie said.

I didn’t think about what I had done one way or the other. I just wanted to get some sleep. I did, however, ponder whether there was this happy mouse out there asking for directions back to my house. How could he resist our five-star hospitality?

I asked a clerk: “Have you got something in a poison?”

The clerk showed us pellets that contained an anticoagulant, which thins the blood, causing the mouse to hemorrhage to death.

Shoshana interjected. “No way, Jose; that’s too cruel.”

Vocabulary

1. formative years: 性格形成时期。

2. Montreal: 蒙特利尔，加拿大港市。

3. tenement: 租住的房子。

4. commonplace: 平常的，常见的。

5. smoked meat: 熏肉。

6. landlord: 房东。

7. sit: 与……保持和谐。

8. discreetly: 谨慎地，小心地。

9. shriek: 尖叫。

10. plead: 请求。

11. sanity: 理智，清醒。

12. Home Depot: 家得宝，全球最大的家居用品零售商。

13. aloof: 超然的。

14. methodical: 讲方法的。

15. bar: 此处指老鼠夹上的挑杆。

16. so much as: 甚至于。

17. sniff: 嗅，闻。

18. enticing: 诱人的。

19. Marie Antoinette: 玛丽•安托瓦内特，法国国王路易十六的王后，1793年因叛国罪被送上断头台。

20. boast: 自夸。

21. resemble: 像……，类似于。

22. luscious: 香甜的，美味的。

23. Emmenthal: 一种瑞士多孔奶酪。

24. closet: 秘密的，也有“不切实际的，空谈的”之义。

25. PETA: = People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals，善待动物组织。

26. humane: 仁慈的，善良的。

27. on the spot: 处于困难境地。

28. bullhorn: 手提式扩音器。

29. Felix: 动画片《猫和老鼠》中猫的名字，此处及以下多处均为幽默的说法。

30. pellet: 坚硬小球或小丸，即老鼠药。

31. sanction: 处罚。

32. initiate steps: 采取措施。

33. try: v. 审讯。

34. The Hague:海牙，荷兰西部城市，联合国国际法院所在地。

35. ultrasound: 超声波。

36. pitched: 高音的。

37. drive sb. nuts: 让某人发疯。

38. be all for: 大力赞同……。

39. veto: 否决。

40. empathize: 表示同情。

41. Geneva Conventions: 《日内瓦公约》，主要为国际法中的人道主义定下了标准，在此作者指对待老鼠也得人道一点。

42. oblong: 长方形的。

43. bait: 诱饵，饵。

44. unanimous: 一致同意的。

45. the Titanic figured it was unsinkable: 泰坦尼克号以为自己不会下沉，此处指过度乐观。

46. neurosis: 恐惧症。

47. saunter: 闲逛，漫步。

48. anticoagulant: 抗凝血剂

49. hemorrhage: 出血。

50. interject: 突然插嘴。

（来源：英语学习杂志）