Mouse Trap

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.