Standing on the top landing, staring aghast at the basement floor below, I wished for the first time in a long time that there were a man around the house. I’d been heading downstairs to the washing machine, my arms laden with dirty clothes, when my eye caught something out of place at the foot of the stairs. The yellow strip of sticky gel that was normally tucked into a dark corner to trap camelback crickets had somehow migrated about three feet north by northeast, and something round and dark was stuck to one end of the strip. For a few seconds I thought maybe a leaf had been blown onto the trap by a stray draft, but then the dark thing twitched and I froze in terror and dread. My pulse raced, my vision blurred, and all my blood headed straight for my feet. For the first time in 30 years, I had a mouse in my house.

            Since my ex-husband left seven years ago, certain distasteful aspects of household management have fallen to me, the nastiest of which is dealing with insects laboring under the mistaken notions that indoors is better than outdoors and that I will be tolerant of multipedal companionship. I’ve always had an embarrassingly girlish horror of creepy-crawlies, especially spiders. When we were children, my little sister would grab a flashlight and chase after spiders under my bed while I quivered under the sheets. As an adult, I had no qualms about calling my husband at work to beg him to come home and kill a spider in the kitchen.

As a matter of ethics and spirituality, I honor all forms of life and am more than happy to share the ecosystem with creatures great and small, but I draw the line at my living space. That’s why one of the first things I bought after getting divorced was a BugZooka (http://www.bugzooka.com/home.html), a marvel of engineering for the squeamish. Armed with this ingenious device, I’ve faced down countless wayward lightning bugs, flies, spiders, and even wasps. But not even a BugZooka could solve my mouse problem.

I knew immediately what needed to be done. The mouse was clearly alive and struggling, its tail and at least one hind foot stuck fast to the glue in the cricket trap. Leaving it there to die slowly from dehydration was unconscionable, not to mention impractical given my need for clean underwear. No, I wanted the mouse out of my basement and released, if possible, to the wild—just not by me.

When I regained the use of my legs, I tossed my dirty laundry back into the hamper, ran out the front door and headed straight for my nearest male neighbor, Jonathan, who had worked in Africa for nonprofit organizations. I figured he must have wrestled a boa constrictor or two and maybe even shooed a rhino away from his Land Rover. I fervently hoped he would not be intimidated by a stuck brown mouse. Yet, even as I rang his doorbell I was ashamed of this brazen retreat to cultural stereotypes. Here I was, playing the cartoonish role of the “little woman.” I might as well have been up on a kitchen table, my knees clamped shut, shrieking “Eeek!” And poor Jonathan, bearing the male burden of rescuing a damsel in distress, yet demoted from dragon-slayer to rodent-wrangler. And why did I automatically assume that he would have the stomach for peeling a mouse off a sticky pad when I clearly didn’t?

If you Google “why women are afraid of mice” you’ll get a variety of information, from sober descriptions of musophobia as a psychological disorder to Internet discussions where most female respondents staunchly aver that the stereotype is slanderous and that they adore the cute little critters. Those who admit to an aversion to mice offer a variety of excuses, most of which make little sense under close inspection. Most musophobes cite the fact that wild mice are dirty and can spread disease, forgetting that the same could be said of pets and children. Others claim a distaste for having to dispose of dead mice caught in guillotine-type traps, apparently unaware that there are many humane, live-capture mouse traps available. I can empathize, however, with those who fear the shock of having a mouse dart across their path or (eeuw!) over their feet. I suffer from hyperreflexia, a disordered response to stimuli characterized by exaggerated reflexes. When a doctor taps my kneecap with that little rubber hammer, I go into a paroxysm that nearly knocks me off the examining table. I worry sometimes that I could literally be startled to death by, say, a mouse darting across my feet.

However, I’ve learned enough about myself to recognize that my extreme response to the mouse trapped in my basement stemmed partly from an identification with the little mammal’s dilemma. The suffering of animals has always paradoxically affected me more profoundly than human suffering. Instances from my childhood, when I endured abuse I was helpless to relieve or even understand, have so sensitized me to the suffering of mute creatures that is causes a post-traumatic stress reaction. My inability to rescue the mouse I had inadvertently captured was cowardly, but at least I recognized its source.

Jonathan arrived on my doorstep smiling indulgently and sporting a pair of thick leather gloves. I poured out a torrent of embarrassed apologies and heartfelt gratitude as I led him to the top of the basement stairs. I explained about the sticky cricket trap and begged Jonathan to try to free the mouse and release him into the bushes across the street. I switched on the light over the stairs and mumbled abashedly, “I left the door to the outside open for you. I’m sorry, but I just can’t look.”

Moments later, when I heard the garage door open, I ran to the front door and watched Jonathan stride across the street holding the yellow plastic cricket trap by one end, the mouse still clearly stuck at the other. He knelt with his back to me for several minutes. Jonathan is tall and lean with blue eyes, a trim beard, and a quick smile. He and his Irish wife are the parents of one-year-old twin boys whom they dote on. He has the look and bearing of a Knight of the Round Table, and as I watched him crouched on one knee, gently attempting to rescue a tiny mouse, I wished I could have honored his courage and chivalry by providing him with a proper dragon to engage in battle. Or a snake at the very least.

A few minutes later Jonathan rose and crossed the street holding the trap, now bearing only a few shriveled cricket carcasses, a patch of brown fur, and a ragged edge where the mouse had attempted to chew itself free. “As soon as I got his tail and hind feet unstuck he ran off into the bushes,” Jonathan said beaming, “so I guess he’s okay.” Nearly prostrate with relief and gratitude, I took the trap from my young champion and tried to thank him adequately, but he waved it away. “Oh, it was nothing,” he said. “Let me know anytime I can help out.”

Most of the time, as a satisfied single, I enjoy my solitude and work hard to maintain my independence (http://www.singlewithattitude.com/). I’m proud of my ability to tackle minor home repairs and redecorating projects by myself. But living alone has its occasional challenges, and for a certain type of individual these can lead to unfortunate quirks. For instance, I don’t want to grow paranoid and needy like the old woman who lived next door to me years ago. She would bang on my door at odd hours, her eyes glistening with panic, and beg me to come to her apartment and sniff her tap water, which she insisted smelled “funny.” Or she’d call at 10 o’clock at night, pleading with me to make an emergency run to the pharmacy for vitamin C. I brooded on these sorts of things for hours after Jonathan had left, and tried to re-establish my sense of competence by baking a dozen blueberry muffins and delivering them to him and his family in a wicker basket. So much for avoiding stereotypes.

The next day, I still couldn’t pry the mouse problem from my mind. I fervently hoped another one would not find its way into my basement, but that prospect was dim enough to make me call an exterminator for an inspection. I bought and set out a couple of live-capture traps and repeatedly visualized myself putting on thick gloves, picking up a quivering trap (deep breath in, deep breath out), and releasing the mouse across the street. What on earth was so frightening about that? The mouse would want nothing more than to run away from me as fast as he could. What did I imagine would happen? That before hightailing it into the underbrush the vengeful rodent would turn on me, bite my thumb, and snarl, “Thanks fer nothin’!” No, this was doable, and should the need arise, I had to do it myself, I thought. I had to conquer my fear, be self-reliant, and stop annoying my neighbors. Nothing less would suit my urgent need to be a rational, independent, courageous Wise Woman.

Then the fever broke and I saw that scenario for the delusional bunk it was. The Wonder Woman who is all things unto herself was my own creation and bore little relation to my circumstances or the way things work in the larger world. After all, I know full well that nothing gives me as much joy and satisfaction as helping someone in need. Whether it’s buying a llama from Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org/) or grabbing a box of cereal off a tall supermarket shelf for a mother with a baby on her hip, helping makes me feel real, useful, connected, and simply happy. Why should I deny to others that opportunity for happiness by stubbornly refusing to ask for help when I need it? The truth is, I can’t do everything for myself—I’m not strong enough, brave enough, smart enough, or rich enough.

But if we can’t all do everything, we can all do something. I gave Jonathan a chance to express his kind and generous nature, as well as a good story to tell his friends about the crazy lady next door. I may never conquer musophobia, but I can make boffo blueberry muffins for those who have. Maybe in the great scale of the universe, it all balances out.