I have recently rekindled my fondness for killing.
Our house has recently been inhabited by a pack of mice. We noticed the first one a few weeks ago, while we were downstairs watching TV. It scurried across the floor from the utility room (where we keep the dog's food) into one of the little woofer holes at the bottom of a stereo speaker next to the TV. Chris started freaking out and I had to grab the speaker and bring it outside in an effort to shake the mouse out. I think I was successful but I wasn't sure, because just at the moment when I thought I saw the mouse shake out, I flinched my head away (it was a violent shake I gave, and I thought the mouse would fly into my face). When I looked back a half-second later, I saw no trace of the mouse anywhere around me, outside or in the speaker. Mission accomplished, or so I thought.
About a week later we see a mouse scurry across the floor as before, except it didn't end up in the speaker, instead in went into a vent built into the side of the hearth for feeding cold flue air. My heart sank thinking that I hadn’t shaken that mouse out the speaker after all. The day after that though, we saw a couple more mice scurry around in single file. Suddenly this situation was promoted from a mouse problem to a mice problem.
The next day our house was filled with peanut butter baited traps. I bought a variety of traps, thinking that if any one mouse got wise by seeing a dead comrade in a particular trap, he might learn to avoid it. I had the traditional snap-traps, a few glue traps, and some new-fangled humane traps that caught them in a little box. By last Friday I had killed or captured five mice in all and I thought I had won. But then, just the other day, we began to hear some noises in the walls upstairs. I think we have just one mouse left and I will remain on the hunt. For one day I will be the glorious victor, and my enemy will be destroyed.
1 comment:
remember...stomp not saw
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