Of Mice and Women

One evening, a few weeks ago, my doorbell rang. At the door was my next door neighbor, Jackie. She had come over to see if my husband was at home. Jackie appeared unsettled and agitated. I asked what was wrong and if she needed help. It seems she had heard a noise in the house and was concerned. She thought there might be a mouse down in the lower level where the family room is located. A mouse or another “critter” was how she put it. She was hoping my husband was home to go over and take a look.



My husband wasn’t home. He’s never home, but I was. I asked her if she wanted me to come over to take a look and she seemed surprised at my offer. She said, “you’re not afraid?”.


I can become irritated with women who look to men to perform functions they are perfectly capable of performing for themselves. Looking to see if you have a mouse in the house is one of them. Opening jars, killing bugs, lifting things, climbing ladders, replacing the gas tank on a BBQ grill, changing the water jug to the water cooler … all things women are perfectly capable of doing yet they seem to always want a man to do it for them. No woman has ever lost a uterus from having to exert herself by twisting open a stubborn lid on a pickle jar or by changing the water jug on the water cooler dispenser. No women was ever killed by a mouse in her basement. Seriously.


Jackie is an accomplished woman. Single, middle aged, professional, she bought the house next door to ours a few years ago. I liked her immediately. She’s friendly, sensible, not intrusive or nosy. She doesn’t gossip. She’s helpful, polite and always has time to say hello or offer a kind word. She’s a perfect neighbor. In August, while she was away on a vacation, her house was burglarized and vandalized. Her laptop, credit cards and other personal items were found strewn about neighborhood. In fact my husband found her laptop discarded in one of our hedges. It was upsetting and both my husband and I sat with her while she spoke to the police the day she discovered the break in.


She reacted with such aplomb after the burglary that I was amazed. She seemed hardly fazed, dealt with police and insurance folks with ease and packed up and went to a hotel until the police were done with their investigation and the cleaning crews cleared the damage. She subscribed to a security service to monitor her home and that was that. Every conversation we’d had following the burglary showed a woman perfectly comfortable living alone.


So when Jackie appeared to be too freaked out to go see if she had a mouse in her family room I paused before passing judgement. I wondered if the burglary, or rather some residing fear resulting from it, may still be floating in her mind. She assured me this was not the case and that it was just a mouse that had her nervous. Still I thought she was being silly, grabbed a broom and a flashlight. and off I went next door to investigate.


We didn’t find a mouse, a critter, or so much as a dust bunny in that family room. I looked in the laundry room, the mud room and her garage all the while with Jackie huddled behind me peeping over my shoulder. Pronouncing the place clear, we went upstairs and sat. While she was in the kitchen pouring us each a glass of wine (it’s hard work searching for mice!) I thought about how fearful she had been. I thought about how paralyzed she seemed. How incapacitated and how far removed from her normal self she’d been. I thought about how she’s lived alone for all of these years, many of them next door to me, and how I never knew her to be afraid of anything.


I also thought about my own fears. I thought about how I like to say that very little scares me. In truth there are very few things that scare me but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel fear. I’ve been in situations, like Jackie, where I’ve felt paralyzed and afraid to face something by myself. I’ve become removed from my normal self. I’ve been nearly incapacitated. The only difference has been is that I never went out to find a man to help me get past the fear.


The difference is I make myself face the fear.

Indeed.