Lessons from college

People always talk about how much they grow in college. How they mature and how much they learn about themselves. I would definitely agree. I learned a lot about who I am and what I like or don't like. I learned one thing in particular that will stay with me forever: I am terribly afraid of mice.

It was just another normal night in 220. Katie Hahn and I were watching America's Next Top Model, eating an assortment of snacks, and playing Bubble Shooter. You know, the usual. We were just about to find out whether or not Eva would be eliminated when...

"AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!"

This may be the loudest scream that has ever existed in the history of screaming. Just to give you an idea, it sounded like a 6-year-old who just heard rumors that Santa may or may not be real. Times 10. Yeah, it was THAT bad.

"THERE'S A MOUSE IN OUR ROOM!!!! I SAW IT! THERE'S A MOUSE!" Katie was now screaming into my ear as her irrational fear of mice was kicking in and tears were filling her eyes. Me, being the cool and calm girl that I am, kept telling her that I don't see it therefore she must be making it up. However, the little creepy crawler made it's way out from under the drawers and it was my turn to scream. (This was the exact moment I realized that I too had an irrational fear of mice.) Our eyes were glued to those drawers and eventually, we were caught in this cycle....Katie and I stare at the dresser, the mouse peeks out, we scream and grab each other, the mouse disappears back under the drawers and we continue staring. Over and over and over. The mouse might have even thought we were planning a game. Katie and I were not having fun.

"AHHHHH" Katie screamed once more, and then turned to me and said "Alex, stop screaming!"

"Katie, I didn't scream. You did." This was irrelevant to her.

"Well what should we do? That thing is disgusting. I'm not sleeping in here tonight." She insisted. So what did we do? Duhhh we called campus safety. I mean, what else would you do when there's a mouse in your room? Of course, right as we call and they answer, the mouse creeped out from under the dresser and we reconvened our game of screaming. While campus safety was on the phone. They must've thought we were being robbed during the phone call.

"No we're okay. We're okay. We just have a mouse in our room....Well, what should we do?....No, you don't understand. It's in our room right now and I can't sleep here...One of the roommates has a really irrational fear of mice and we can't just forget about it....Yeah, I know how to fill out a work order but that takes a couple days. What about tonight?...It's not going to crawl in our bed?...But it's really scary...No, I understand. Okay, thanks."

Needless to say, campus safety was of no help. So there we were, at 12:30am, huddled together on Katie's bed with nothing to do. Plan B? Check online. "How to kill a mouse instantly." Here were some ideas: drop something heavy on it? No, then it's guts would get everywhere. Set a mouse trap with cheese? No car or money to buy the trap and no cheese. Set a trap with peanut butter? Maybe. Spray it with disinfectant spray? YES!

Unfortunately, after about 10 minutes of spraying this mouse to death (no pun intended), we realized Katie's spray was "Toxic-free", which is great for humans, but not great when you're trying to kill a mouse. So now we had a wet, gross mouse running around our dorm room and still no way to get rid of it. Plan C? What any smart freshman would do....get our RA. Because I'm sure they do some sort of training as to how to kill of mice, right? So I knock in Vicki's door around 1:00am and after many tears & screams, we created a peanut butter trap and just sat there, waiting. Waiting and waiting and waiting. Maybe the disinfectant spray did end up having a little bit of toxins in it and the mouse was dead? Maybe it crawled out and we didn't see it? "AHHHHH!!!!!!!" Nope, still in here.

For about another half hour, this tiny little mouse terrorized the three of us. Who would've thought one mouse could cause so much turmoil? Finally, Katie and I decided to very strategically get our pillows and blankets to go sleep in the study room because, as Katie kept insisting, there was NO WAY we were sleeping in the same room as that mouse. Right as I was about to get off her bed and grab my things as quickly as possible, Mr. Mouse has a different plan. I suppose he got tired of our game and he shot out from under my bed (who even knew that's where he was) and ran out the door. I ran after him and slammed the door shut, just in case he changed his mind and came back.

After all the drama settled down, Vicki left. Katie and I did yoga to calm ourselves down. We found a towel to stuff under the door and a blanket to put under the dresser, just in case. And for the rest of the year, we never left our door open. No snacks were left out unless they were in a Ziploc bag and we never kept cheese in our room. Never.

Needless to say, I no longer make fun of Katie for her fear of mice and now would defend her fear to the death. After a couple days, the jokes people made actually became funny to us and we didn't yell at people who left our door open for 10 seconds. We are growing. But, next time Mr. Mouse decides to stop by, we'll be ready with our peanut butter traps and TOXIC disinfectant spray.