Build a Better Baited Mousetrap

We have a mouse in our basement. Maybe, mice. Hopefully, mouse. First, the long-tailed vermin got into the dog food—chewed a lovely hole into a bin full of dog food. Then, once the dog food bin was removed, it chewed on the stored dining room table pad in the basement. Obviously my communist table wiper (see “Communist Car Wash”) had done only the minimum job. So, the table pad was removed to a safe place, and the traps came out.

My husband Cal worked at a pest control company when he was doing his Master’s degree in seminary, so vermin removal is his territory (or sphere of sovereignty, if you prefer). Cal bought snap traps—he eschews glue traps because they aren’t as humane and ought to be used only as a last resort.

One night he set his traps. One trap had mozzarella cheese—he’d sewed it to a trap with a needle and burgundy thread. The second trap he baited with dog food—it seemed to be a favorite of the mouse. The next day Cal went downstairs to survey the fruits of his labor. Sadly, the mozzarella had been eaten right off the trap and the thread lay in a neat pile on top of the unsnapped trap. The other trap was also unsnapped—and the dog food was no where to be seen.

Obviously, our mouse was not your ordinary run-of-the-mill Mickey. He must be more of a Milton. Or, maybe a she, a Murgatroid. In any case, Cal had a new strategy. Glue. Yes, he decided to glue the bait to the trap. First, he got out the Gorilla glue. I imagined the bait encased in a dried foam of unbreakable glue and said, “Honey, do you know how much that stuff swells as it dries?” (I have plenty of experience gluing on the arms and legs of Frodo and Aragorn and the various appendages of Uruk-hai, Treebeard and a massive cave troll.) At any rate, Calvin agreed and got out the Elmer’s wood glue. Once again, he baited the traps with cheese and Pedigree nuggets. But, our Murgatroid is a bright mouse-ette. This morning, it was as I suspected—she had smelled the glue and left well enough alone. Cal hasn’t decided what to do next. (We’ve been busy getting the last of Luke’s and Ariel’s scholarship papers delivered to the right place.) I’m sure that by tonight he’ll have figured out a new and better way to bait a trap. I think he’s considering chocolate. And if he doesn’t catch mice, he may catch a chocolate-lover or two.

P.S. Of course, there’s always the possibility that the mouse/mice are here as part of Oswald’s plan to take over the house/world.

Capture

Last night around midnight, Luke heard a noise, then another noise and another. He tiptoed out of his room (okay, Luke doesn't tiptoe--he's more like a mastadon, but you get the idea) and woke up Ariel. In the darkness they surrounded Oswald, flipped on the lights, and captured him.

Later, during Oswald's interrogation (which did not involved torture, merely the dangling of honey-coated bird treats in front of his nose), Luke and Ariel discovered that Oswald had set up his base of operations under Luke's dresser. And, though Oswald did not protest during his arrest, he was furiously chewing the bars of his cage this morning. Luke believes Oswald spent his time on the lam recruiting other creatures in his bid for world domination. So we'll have to see what other creatures try to escape. Our spy network has told us that Jezebel was recruited, but she refused to participate--Oswald couldn't better her current arrangements of four square meals, a warm bed, plenty of bones, and a two and half mile run over the hills three times a week. Besides Jezzie thought Oswald's secret code was a bit over the top.

Escape

The other day, Ariel's hamster Oswald escaped from his cage during the night--he knocked the cage onto the floor, the wheel broke off the cage, and he hightailed it. How Ariel slept through this all is rather mystifying. And we haven't seen any sign of him since. Luke talks about Oswald breaking free to mate with rats and then discusses of the possibility of hunting ham-rats in the basement, Cal talks about a tasty treat for Jezebel (our five month old black Lab), Jacob talks about the lights dimming as Oswald chews through electrical wires, and Matt mentions seeing the phantasm of poor, dear Oswald. Ariel "patiently" ignores it all.

Personally, I believe that Oswald is a secret agent who has been "placed" in our home to spy out the secret goings on--who gets up for a midnight snack and leaves the pizza out on the counter, who leaves legos/dining room chairs/violin cases in the middle of the floor to be tripped over, and who gets up and secretly transmits coded messages about world domination and demands a new knuckle bone.