Mouse Hunt

It's mouse time again!

As the weather gets colder, Kathy & I had noticed an increased incursion of mice. So, the other night, I pulled out the old standby: glue traps. I set one by the fridge, two at the corners of the stove, and another by the trash can. All places I've caught mice in the past.

After two days of having the traps out, results were poor. No mousies had been caught, and I was waking up early and going downstairs before Kathy could for nothing.

So last night, I decided to bait one of the traps. I plopped an orange gumdrop in the center of the glue trap and set it on a counter the mice visit now and then.

This morning, I took trap inventory. The one by the trash can was there, but there was only one trap by the stove. The one by the fridge had been moved to the counter, and there it sat, gumdrop untouched.

I looked around for the missing trap. I grabbed our LED flashlight, but it seemed to be going dead. So I grabbed the clunky orange flashlight, and directed the beam under the stove. I couldn't see anything down there. I stalked around the kitchen, peering into nooks, squinting into crannies. Nothing.

Somewhere along the line, I lost track of my orange flashlight. I looked all around for it, and just couldn't fine the thing. I felt like I was living in a cartoon, that a little cadre of mice had scampered up to the flashlight and stolen it when I wasn't looking. I looked over at that lone gumdrop on the trap. Suddenly it looked like a middle finger that they left waiting for me.

I found yet another flashlight--my third--and then noticed the second one on the dining room table. And when I crouched down on the kitchen tile and took another look under the stove, I saw the mouse on the trap, waaaaay in the back. I eventually was able to fish it out with the help of a yardstick--luckily, the traps are kinda sticky--and then tossed the mouse in a grocery bag and the bag in the outside trash. He's on his way to a landfill by now.

Ah, well. At least there's one gumdrop in the house I won't eat.

Rob