Published Wednesday, December 02, 2009 11:38 AM
Updated Wednesday, December 02, 2009 11:38 AM
“A little bird with a yellow bill sat upon my window sill,
I coaxed him in with bits of bread and then I smashed his freakin’ head.”
Readers might remember last week’s confession of self-infesting my household with a furry little four-legged rodent from the garage. His story ended well; after I got over my initial heart seizure from seeing him spring into the air from between my feet, I managed to catch him with a shoe box and release him in a stretch of woods where I hope he went to play and frolic with all the other little rodents of the sylvan deep.
What I didn’t know, at least not until after deadline, was that his story had a postscript.
Yep; two mice, the second a little wilier than the first. He eluded capture for about two days, causing great consternation in our domestic life. Truly nothing is more disgusting than listening to the rustle and scrape of tiny paws clawing their way along bedroom baseboards in the dark of the night. Click on the lights, you might catch a brief glimpse of a wiggling tail as it disappears under the dust ruffle directly below your head.
You hear about homemade non-lethal solutions and humane traps. Don’t kill the poor little beasties; just catch and release! It’s easy; all you need is a long cardboard tube and a 10-foot tall trashcan, or some such.
Balderdash. It doesn’t work. Period. Either the trap is lethal and effective or it’s non-lethal and soon the object squeaks of scornful laughter.
I remember years ago my sister and her husband had a little flock of friends move into their basement one cold winter. She tried a couple of those newfangled sticky traps, at the time touted as a humane way to dispose of unwanted rodents (they’re not).
The first time they caught a mouse, she was all misty dimples.
“Awww, how cute! Let’s take him to the country!”
My brother-in-law pointed out – somewhat testily, I would imagine – that Speedy Gonzales would have a tough time trying to navigate the woods in a tiny wagon and shoeshine brushes on the stumps of his legs. They don’t call them sticky traps for nothing.
A few days and several dozen full traps later, her attitude tempered slightly.
“Screw ‘em, let ’em squeak,” she would mutter under her breath as she tossed yet another loaded man-made tar pit into a garbage bag.
Now I don’t like to kill unnecessarily. I really did try to catch this little bugger alive so I could possibly reunite him with his friend in the woods. But eventually, it came to scorched earth. And while he was pretty smart, his greed got the better of him. I coaxed him in with a bit of peanut butter and let a snap trap do the rest.
There’s a lesson to be learned in all this, somewhere and ... mmm … wow … peanut butter cookies ...why, thank you, baby!
Yes, I did buy life insurance recently. Why do you ask?