One evening, five years ago, I was shopping in a supermarket. I filled up the shopping cart with 800 shekels worth of products, took a taxi home, and felt really good about myself. I was thinking how pleasant it was that I had a job and was making money, and that I could allow myself all this bounty.
When I walked into my house, it was already late at night. I unpacked my purchases, put everything where it belonged, and closed the doors of the cabinets. Then, just before going to sleep, I heard a squeaking sound coming from the direction of the pantry. This was very strange. A few minutes earlier, when I had been putting away the things I had bought, I hadn’t seen anything suspicious, and now, suddenly something was moving in there.
I was so tired that I didn’t have the strength or the patience to investigate, and I went to sleep.
The next morning, I went to the pantry to take out some coffee, and I discovered that the package of farfel was open. I remembered that when I was in the store shopping, I had checked to make sure that it was sealed. I had no doubt that it had opened up after I had put it in the pantry. Maybe there was some sort of knife in the pantry, and just when the package landed there, it brushed against the knife and was cut open. That didn’t seem likely, but it was possible. If there was a knife, I would find it and remove it so it wouldn’t cause further damage.
I cleared out the shelf and set everything on the counter, and then I noticed a strange type of dirt, not the kind I am accustomed to cleaning from time to time. This was something worth looking into, and I decided to try to learn more about it.
I work in one of the large food chains, where I have the chance to speak to many friends from work and also to clients. One of them would certainly enlighten me. My investigation yielded the news that both the open package and the strange dirt were nothing less than the result of a mouse’s visit.
I called the owner of the apartment that I rent and complained about the mouse’s visit. In the rental contract we had signed it was written explicitly that only I can decide which guests to bring into my home. There is definitely no entry for mice. The owner of the house calmed me down and said he would take care of everything. He told me to buy, at his expense, a mousetrap made of glue, which would catch the mouse – or mice – once and for all.
I set out the trap in the proper place, but no mouse was caught, and, worst of all, by mistake I got my own foot caught in one of these traps. Ach! This was really strong glue! How hard I had to work to scratch it off my shoe!
I sought advice from my friends, and they told me to put out poison, which looks like powder of all different colors. Its smell lures mice, and then they taste it, and before they get much of a chance to enjoy its taste, they die. I bought some and spread it in every possible and impossible place. In order to cover all my bases, I used both the glue-traps and the poison. I even sprinkled some poison on the glue trap.
It didn’t help! It seemed I had a war on my hands with a whole family of mice, who were probably revealing all the secrets to each other. I saw with my own eyes how a mouse would get close to the trap and then walk around it! Nothing happened to the mouse, but I felt the blood rushing up to my head. The mice had morphed from guests into household members. They went everywhere, even in my bed.
This nightmare lasted for a full month. In Mitzrayim there was only one week of makkas tzefardeia, while I lived with those mice for four impossible weeks. My friends shared my sorrow, and each one came up with some sort of joke on my account. They advised me to put up a cage trap, and I did that. During this time, it seems I earned a doctorate in everything connected to the war between man and mice.
One day, I met my chareidi neighbor. We rarely meet, as our schedules are so different, but this time, the Creator had pity on me, and we met, and he asked me, “How are you?
