Thursday, June 21, 2007

15 minute standoff

Mickey, my unoriginally named mouse, has been captured.

I discovered, unpleasantly by the way, that he has (note, I say has, rather than 'had'... he's not dead yet) a particular craving for the little packets of spices I kept in the kitchen drawer. So I grabbed one of the four glue traps strategically placed around my house, and put it in the drawer with the spices.

The next day I discovered he had ingeniously figured out that walking around the trap over to the spices was just as easy as walking over the trap to the spices. So I took all the spices out of the drawer, and was going to throw them away, when I noticed that he seemed to only nibble at all the packets except for the chicken gravy packet. I don't know what chicken gravy is exactly (except what the name says) I don't know why I have it, or how long it's travelled around with me, I don't know that I've ever eaten chicken with gravy on it, or that I would cook chicken with gravy on it. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure why I have any of the packets, since I don't cook. But that's beside the point.
Since Mick seemed to like the chicken gravy, I dumped some of the packet onto my glue trap, and threw everything else away.

And then I waited.

I went to church, and sure enough by the time I came home I heard his persistent "eeep" sounding from the drawer.

Thus began my 15 minute stand off.

You see, the instructions on the box show step 1: peel the two traps apart. Step 2: place them strategically around your home. Step 3: Once mouse is caught, pick up trap and put it in the trash.

Step 1 & 2 went down easily.

Step 3 had a problem.

I've never been a girly girl, but this was one of those situations I really don't do well with. If he'd been on the floor (rather than in my kitchen drawer) I would have grabbed a broom and beat the tar out of him until he stopped "eeeep"ing. But unfortunately, there he was sitting on my trap in a kitchen drawer that I would have felt foolish explaining why it had a broom sized hole in it. He was eeping at me and upon closer inspection I saw him literally trying to bite his way away from the glue.

That worried me.

Thoughts of shutting the drawer and coming back days later when I started to smell him decaying, vanished with the idea that this little beast might get away. So, I did the only thing I could think of to do.

I grabbed another glue trap, and tried to throw it on top of him so as to stick his other side as well, doubling his chances of not getting away. Unfortunately, I have horrible aim when my eyes are closed and I'm trying to prepare to run away (in case he suddenly has one of those miracle moments people talk about where when in a desperate situation you receive unnatural strength. It could happen.) So my aim only got me his bottom half covered. Leaving me looking at his little head.

He was almost cute.

Almost.

Feeling slightly more confident, with his bottom half stuck firmly to two separate traps, I then took the final step.

I got a third trap and stuck it firmly to his head. Now I couldn't see him at all... this was progress. But I still didn't want to touch the trap.

I grabbed a wad of paper towels and *finally!* attempted to pick up the trap only to hear the little booger "eeep" at me. Instinctively I dropped the trap and backed away glaring at my eeping mound of glue traps. Finally, simply staring at the drawer I took a moment to call myself a few names, making perfectly clear that I was being a complete sissy about all this. When I reached the point of calling myself a scaredy cat, I realized that I wasn't even as good as a scaredy cat, because.. even a scaredy cat would have offed this little grey monster by now.

SO, running out of options, I went to another drawer and grabbed a long set of tongs, slid it around the paper towels, held my breath, made a really bad face, and shoved the whole assortment of objects into the waiting trash bag. Quickly tied several several knots, and made it outside to the trash can.

I concede that I'm a chicken, but at least I got the job done.

Next time, I think I'll just move.

6 comments:

Glenda said...

At least you caught the little thing. Congratulations!! That within itself is an accomplishment.

SLW said...

What if it was Stuart Little? Arghhhh....



I had a mouse problem (but not a la Monty Python) early in my Christian life. Out of the corner of my eye late one night, I caught a gray streak. Mighty (not Mickey, this was a manly exploit!) ran across the apartment floor so I jumped into hot pursuit. The little booger snuck behind the baseboard heater before I could clobber him with a shoe. I could see him, even chase him, but couldn't get to him through the skinny slot. I couldn't rest with the thought of that foul, disease laden vermin in the apartment (I had sleeping brothers to protect afterall), so I prayed to God for victory over my fuzzy enemy. In a flash of inspiration I selected a steak knife to sacrifice to the effort, and with beady-eyed determination stalked the dirty little fuzzball, steak knife at the ready. And then, there he was, with one stroke, my enemy was felled. I slid the knife and victim out to end and then hoisted my mouse popsicle up on high in a wave offering of gratitude to God who had given me the victory. Then Mighty, still attached to the means of his demise found the garbage shoot and an ignomious burial. To this day, I've never experienced a more manly exploit!

Loved the post, LOL.

Flyawaynet said...

lol. I like your story better slw!

I would have gladly stabbed my little Mick, but unfortunately I couldn't find a steak knife with a 7 foot handle.

Flying you down to Texas would be cheaper than moving, so next time I find myself "with mouse" I hope you're able to free some time up.

SLW said...

I have people for that kind of thing! ;-)

Flyawaynet said...

Those "people" had better have good references. I don't want to call in the second string guy only to have them fail.

I've always tried to act as unthreateningly as possible towards the mouse until I'm ready to attack. I've always imagined that mice are capable of anger and so to try and catch/kill one, only to fail, leaves you with an angry mouse on your hands who now knows he has nothing to lose.

SLW said...

Stop it! You're making me shiver!