Feeling the Guilt

Yesterday when I was working at our studio, I went to use the ladies' room.

Twenty minutes later, I went to use the ladies' room again. I'm pregnant. This is what happens.

Except this time, there was a mouse in the middle of the floor, blocking me from getting to the stalls, without having to actually step over it.

Which is weird, right? Because normally mice run away.

And I promise you, I let out a sound when I saw it. (I'd like to say a feminine scream but it was more of a manly grunt... possibly an indication that I'm having a boy?) It still didn't move.

So I took a picture of it to send to Murray.

And then I ventured even CLOSER to see if it was breathing. And it WAS!!

So why was it just sitting in the middle of the floor like that, all slumbery?

I went back to the studio and checked our mouse poison. When we first moved in here, there was some evidence of mice, so naturally I bought mouse poison. The bags of mouse poison have remained in tact ever since and we've seen no further evidence of mice.

This time, there was a hole in one of the packs of mouse poison. Which would explain why the mouse was just sitting there.

So then about 20 minutes later, curiosity (and thirst) got the better of me. I went to the drinking fountain outside the bathrooms and I went into the bathroom again to peek. The mouse was no longer in the middle of the floor. I looked around, and found it a few feet away, around the corner by a trash can. Still the same position. Still breathing.

Then about 2 hours later I went to check on the little victim again. It was about another foot away from where it previously was, and its legs were splayed out in behind it and it was most obviously not breathing.

And I cannot help but feel guilty that I left the tiny (and let's face it - cute!) little creature to internally hemorrhage to death! AND that I didn't have the guts to just put it out of its misery when I first found it. AND that I just left its little corpse lying there instead of disposing it. And probably a sweet little church lady is going to find it (because a church also shares our office building).

(At least I can use the pregnancy and protecting my unborn child from unknown diseases as an excuse for not getting near it.)