2016 was the first year I truly lived alone. I had just gone through a tricky breakup with my boyfriend of two years (tricky in the sense that a shared apartment, a dog, and a car was all at stake. For the record, I ended up getting only the car–which an appraiser valued at $100 when I went to trade it in shortly after. My fucking Ray Bans were worth more than that car.) So after that breakup, I wasn’t just boyfriendless; I was homeless.
I was spending most of my nights in a guest bedroom at my friend Natasha’s grandmother’s house in Bethesda. My friends were great about sending me apartments and listings for people seeking roommates in the area. One night, I got a phone call from my friend Brandon claiming he was “about to change my life.”
His old studio apartment in Adams Morgan was available.
I knew Brandon’s studio apartment in Adams Morgan had a lot of sentimental value to our friend group. What I didn’t know was that it also had rodents.
It was my first week in my new apartment living alone. I had just gotten back from a fun weekend in Myrtle Beach with my crew. Out of the corner of my eye I saw it run past the wall nearest my TV–a mouse. I saw it three more times that night and briefly considered downloading Tinder just to see if anyone within a mile radius wanted to come over and handle my mouse. I only imagine this would be slightly misleading when they showed up and I handed them mouse-catching tools.
I set 4 mouse traps, shutting my own hand in the trap no less than four times.
I checked all four of my mouse traps for weeks without ever catching anything. My landlord has an exterminator come to the building once a month, so I assumed I was probably in the clear.
Until one Saturday I’m cleaning my kitchen, and there behind the kitchen trash can is a dead mouse in a trap.
Forget everything I ever said about being a single independent woman. Ladies, if you don’t want to clean up a mouse corpse, there should be no shame in texting every man you know and offering to buy him a steak if he comes and handles your deceased rodent disposal.
I have to give myself a little credit though–the guy who came through for me may have picked up the body but I scrubbed the blood off the floor. Plus, we took our friendship to a whole new level! How many friends can you say you’ve cleaned up a dead body with?
