Meeses

For the first time in my life I have mice. I mean, I don't have mice running up my pants or peeking out my cleavage- no, I mean to say, there are mice in my house that I don't keep in a cage. A week ago Simon found a chewed up ketchup pack in the back of the silverware drawer. After much investigating, we decided we must have a mouse.

Do you realize the full extent of the horror? A mouse was hanging out in our SILVERWARE DRAWER! WHERE THE SILVERWARE THAT GOES INTO OUR MOUTHS USED TO LIVE! LIVE WITH THE MOUSY FEET TAP DANCING ALL OVER IT!!!

So.

I bleached and washed and hoped it was an old event that we just hadn't noticed. The next day- gasp- the damn mouses had been WALKING AND SHITTING ON MY COUNTER!

Oh the outrage. I can't communicate the outrage I felt over someone shitting on my counter.

So.

I hied me down to the Family Dollar and bought me some snappy snappy mouse traps. Boy was aghast that I wouldn't drive down to the Walmart and buy a live trap. I'm trying to avoid the devil's store, so I refused to budge. I did, however, feel slightly guilty that night as I set out the snappy traps with peanut butter bait. The poor, cutesy meese.

That night I got up to pee and realized that a mouse could be snared at that very moment. I felt strangely like a kid at Xmas. The genuine suspense- was there a mouse waiting for me?

Nope.

Nor the next night either.

There were, however, more turds. Upon closer inspection it was discovered the bastards had licked the peanut butter off. I no longer felt the guilt- this meant war.

So.

I tried cheese. Jammed it on there hard and went to bed. That night I got up to pee and- lo and behold! Xmas! I heard a mouse clacking around on the floor wearing a trap for a scarf. I woke Simon up, and we watched it breathe for a while. Simon came up with a plan- he'd take it out, hang his arm over the edge of the porch and shake the trap briskly, thereby breaking the poor mousey neck. In actual practice, what happened is that the mouse flew out of the trap and sailed into the night.

So.

I left the remaining traps out, thinking it was going to come home any minute now to finish the cheese. But the next morning - HORRORS! - there was an entirely different mouse in a trap!

I felt so dirty. I didn't have a mouse- I had mice. Gave me the shudders. Mousey feet all over my kitchen and I hadn't even known.

So.

Simon decided the thing to do was tie pepperoni onto the traps with string so the mices really had to work at it to get the stuff off. At which point we caught the third mouse. THE THIRD MOUSE! THE SECOND TO DIE IN THE SILVERWARE DRAWER! It was like the silverware drawer was some kind of mousey night club.

So.

Another night passes. The Santa of Traps left no gifts, so I began to relax. Maybe we'd caught them all. After all, how could so many mice be living here without us noticing? They leave a trail of turds like cars leave exhaust. If we had so many mice, wouldn't we be swimming in turds?

Apparently not, because last night we caught number four. And you'll never guess which trap he went for.

So.

The top drawer can be our mouse drawer, and the silverware will remain on our table, me thinks. It's handy.

On a more gruesome note, we're beginning to have quite the pile of dead mice beneath our porch. With the first and second mice we thought the ants would clean up the carcass before it was a big deal, but if we're going to catch mice every other day it's going to get embarrassing. I suggesting throwing the dead mice harder so they land in the big evergreen in the neighbor's yard. Like a macabre Xmas Tree. Alternatively, I could toss them on the other neighbor's roof for their cats.

I could, of course, just throw them in the trash, but that doesn't seem right somehow. Point the first - I get squeamish wondering what's going to wander off the carcass when it cools. Point the second - It doesn't seem right to just throw a critter away. True, the critter needs to die, but that doesn't mean it deserves the indignity of being trashed. Not that I'm going to bury it or anything. It just seems more right to leave it out for the other critters to eat.

wondering how hard one has to chuck a mouse to get it to land on the roof,
ephelba