Life, the Universe, and Stuff

So, the battle against tiny rodents continues. The dilemma of killing or not killing an animal that is, after all, kind of cute, is back and perhaps it will repeat itself even more times over the course of the next week. Last night me wifey said she'd found what she thought was new scat. I was skeptical at first, but then chose to lay out, for the sake of safety, some more glue traps. This morning, I came downstairs to the kitchen expecting to find some evidence that I might be right and that we had gotten rid of all the mice. Wrong. One more had been caught and was squirming like crazy on the glue trap. When you see how effective that kind of trap is, you almost start regretting using it in the first place because then you just have to do something to the poor thing that is stuck on the sticky surface. Obviously, trying to get the mouse unstuck is a tricky proposition, and why not say it, also a little gross. Out of mercy, you then feel compelled to find a humane solution and when humane means killing, it's always a tough choice. What do you do then? Stomp on the poor thing or throw it into an airtight bag and let it die of asphixiation? Boy, I just hope that I don't have to deal with more of these because with every repeated incident you start getting less and less sensitive to the killing. (St. Francis, I know I let you down, brother.) I wonder how a warrior deals with these issues in the course of carrying out the duties of the job.