We had a smart mouse.
It would leave small traces of itself around the kitchen or bathroom,
but our attempts to catch it were futile.
We finally had to call pest control.
I started thinking the pest control company had hired the mouse to
torment us for business. The mouse was
finally caught, but with our own traps and not until after we paid $75 for pest
control to come out and lay out more traps.
Lesson learned…pest control won’t do much more than you can already do
for yourself.
But it was a good lesson.
My husband, you know the animal rights carnivore that he is, didn’t want
to hurt the mouse. You know how he found
a pack of baby squirrels and hid them in our closet because he knew I’d be
furious, but his heart was so broken that the mother wasn’t around that he
couldn’t take it anymore. I had
squirrels in my closet. He reluctantly,
(other options?), took them to the animal shelter where I am sure they nodded
with agreement while my husband pleaded their case. “Sure, we’ll feed them and nourish them and
get them on their way.” He left
satisfied while they probably chucked the box of squirrels in the canal behind
the shelter. So he bought mousetraps
that would keep it alive until he was able to set it free outside. I’d say—what, so it can come back in? Let’s just make it a bed while we’re at
it? He couldn’t bear the thought of
killing it, but after months of finding torn this and poop that, he agreed—we
have to get rid of the mouse! And we had
to be serious about it!
So I bought a bunch of those old fashioned, Tom and Jerry
mousetraps. Amazing how years will pass
and some things don’t change. I’ve never
used one, but they are simple contraptions that can be figured out after
watching just a few cartoons as a kid.
My husband was hesitant and a little uneasy about putting them together,
but I assured him it would be no big deal.
Never underestimate my husband. I’m sitting on my lounge chair in the den, and I can hear my
son and husband in the kitchen. They are
working together to get these mousetraps ready to lay in wait for their
intellectual victim. The way they were
talking I imagined them with their heads together, one doing the work while
other did the coaching. “Okay, careful
now, pull it back, don’t let go! Okay,
pull and clip…there! Okay, be
careful…careful…easy.” Oh good, one down
only eight more to go. I thought,
See? You CAN do it…easy! Just load and pull back the clip.
Then I hear them again…oh dear.
“Okay, now gentle, gentle, set it down…oooh! Careful!”
I sat up.
No, they weren’t. They didn’t.
I didn’t have a comment because I didn’t want to believe it.
“Gregory….are you putting the peanut butter on AFTER you set
the trap?”
“No…we are using cheese.”
Cheese? Okay, now I
know he’s stuck in a Tom and Jerry cartoon only Tom was smarter by putting the
food on FIRST. He’s got my son holding
the trap while he sets down a piece of cheese, gingerly, with the hope that the
trap doesn’t go off on my son. I look
around the corner to see for myself that this was happening. They both look up at me and realize their erroneous
ways so apparent through the sheepish look on their faces, which turns to
embarrassment…and so they should be! Despite my call out of their backwards
methods, I still verbally instructed them in case the obvious to me wasn’t
obvious to them—Put a bit of peanut butter on the plank THEN set the trap.
Lucky for them, the mouse fell for it.
