Memos from Quarantine #39: Man v. Mouse - The Case for Collective Defense

There are things you just shouldn’t feel inside your home.

 A drop of water from the ceiling is one. The bite of a mosquito in your bedroom is another.

 And a mouse running across your bare foot – that’s right up there on the list.

 It happened to me this past Tuesday, the warmest (so far) day of the year. It was sunny and 60 – the snow cover was retreating. And inside the old farmhouse at the edge of the hundred-acre wood, the mice emerged like a legion of rodent Captain Americas awakening from suspended animation.

 Well, “legion” – I saw two. But you know what they say: Mice are like French fries in a bag. If you find one, there’s tons.

 First encounter: I was working at my dining room table and spotted out of the northwest corner of my eye a midsized mouse skittering across the kitchen floor. By instinct, I was less concerned about what it was than what I hoped it wasn’t. “Tell me that wasn’t a rat …”

 I got up to investigate, saw the creature had run under my fridge, which abuts a basement wall. I covered the entry vector – case closed.

 Until second encounter: That was me working in my office, two rooms away, when suddenly … no way did I just feel little paws run across my foot. ‘Til I looked down and confirmed. The good news: It wasn’t a rat. The bad news: This mouse had just broken my lifelong streak of days without rodents sprinting across my feet.

 Of course I did what any victim would do. I chased the damned thing out of my office, through my living room and back into the kitchen, where it ran under the dishwasher, which abuts a wall to the outdoors. I covered another entry vector.

 Third encounter: Maybe an hour later, I went to get lunch, and there was a mouse running laps in my kitchen sink. Now, I’m not necessarily proud of my gut reaction. I yelled at it. Like somehow this was “Scared Straight” and I was going to intimidate this mouse into giving up its life of rodentry. Panicked, it jumped into a metal mixing bowl, and I seized the opportunity to relocate the mouse outdoors.

 So, I won a battle, but this confirmed we were at war. And, man … I’ve never seen mouse wars go well for men. I mean, I’ve watched every film where the Three Stooges portrayed exterminators, and the mice beat ‘em every time. I just recently saw the movie Mouse Hunt about two brothers who inherit an old house and one mouse. Mouse wins. And how many cartoons have I enjoyed about a certain cat taking on a certain mouse? Doesn’t go well for the one named Tom.

 But geez, this is my house – no mouse! I strategized. First thing, I contacted my niece. Her cat just had kittens. I need me a mouser. So, I now have one on retainer. As soon as the kitten is old enough to leave its mother, it’s coming to live in this kitty-cat theme park.

 That evening, I visited the hardware store. It was full of poison and death traps, but let’s be clear: I don’t want to kill anything. I’m all about “live and let live” – just not in the same house. So, I went for the humane traps, the ones that allow for catch and release. I now have four of those distributed strategically along the walls in and near my kitchen. And why not? I even bought a three-pack of these little sonic devices that you plug into an outlet, and supposedly they emit a frequency that’s like Amityville (“GET OUT!”) to the mice. Do they work? They make me feel better; that’s half the battle.

 So, there. I have defense in depth. Or maybe it’s expense in depth? I like to view it as “collective defense,” to borrow a phrase from retired Gen. Keith Alexander, the CEO of IronNet Cybersecurity. His premise is that one enterprise by itself cannot succeed against the might of a nation-state or criminal gang that is intent on breaching it. But collectively, multiple enterprises can share intelligence and resources to mount a credible defense.

 My take: Alone, I don’t stand a chance against rodent-state adversaries. But let me seal some entries, put down some traps, plug in some sonic doo-hickeys and introduce a 24/7 feline patrol? I like my odds.

 I remember asking a group of banking CISOs in New York once, “How do you measure the success of your cybersecurity investments?”

 “We haven’t been in the Wall Street Journal for 18 months,” one said. “We must be doing something right.”

 And I’ve not seen a mouse since Tuesday. That’s progress, right?