Neurosa

A friend of ours has recently discovered that her apartment building has an infestation of mice.

We're talking here about people walking in to their apartments and finding 20-25 mice that scatter when the door opens. Residents hear the mice scrambling around in the walls when they are trying to sleep. This was evidently caused by the destruction of a pond and forest in order to build more apartments.

As alarming as that would be to anyone who has to live in the building, our friend has taken this extremely hard. She has been in the building for about ten years, and developed something of a sentimental attachment to the building. It is where she lived with her (now deceased) cat, it is where she has set down her roots, she used to feel more at home there than anywhere else she has ever lived. More than just that, though, the invasion of mice has triggered some sort of rebirth of her entire personality. The neurotic genes that she inherited have been catalyzed, and a superheroine is born. Neurosa, champion over germs, Brillo pad in one hand, Clorox Wipe in the other, she will find and destroy any trace of anything human in the apartment. Everything in the closets and the kitchen will be disinfected or discarded; she will have no mercy. The apartment will smell like a hospital, and no food will be prepared. If the mice win (and the mice will NOT win, Neurosa will not allow that to happen), a suitcase and a car is all that will remain of this former life, this secret identity if you will. Neurosa takes no prisoners and is not sentimental over a bedroom suite (that might have been touched by a mouse with germs). Nor is Neurosa sentimental about the cat's earthly remains - ashes that were to be scattered off the balcony of the apartment when Neurosa moved out now have an undetermined fate. For Neurosa is the conqueror of anything unclean, especially mice, and Neurosa will be damned if her beloved cat's ashes will be devoured by mice.