I don’t like killing things, but I understand that it is an unavoidable part of life. It seems an odd thing to see in writing. But if you think about it, just two short generations ago people regularly killed their dinner. Whether it was a domestic animal like slaughtering a pig or a chicken, or out hunting in the woods, there was some element of the hunt and eventually something had to die. Not growing up that way, it seems odd to me. Short of a fish here or there over the years, and an ill-fated rabbit, I don’t have much experience in the hunt. That is, until this week.
Last week Kaveman and I were working to paint the side not undergoing a horrible remodeling. In the process, it was noticed that I have a mouse problem. I was aware of this due to the mice hopping into Scout’s kennel and stealing her food. I’d seen a couple mice out of the corner of my eye, and as is the case with small mammals I named them: Laural and Hardy.
So while we were at the hardware store I picked up some new mouse traps. They were a little better quality than the ones I’d gotten some weeks before that the mice got the peanut butter off of without setting them off. I got the original ones cause they looked like something from a ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoon, which should have told me they weren’t going to work. I mean, after all, the show wasn’t called ‘Tom and his lonely, uninteresting, mouse-free life’. The new ones I got have a little “deathbowl” surrounded by a platform. Its all plastic and the arm that really does the killing has little plastic teeth on it (not puncture kind, but grabbing kind). These, made short work of Laural and Hardy – it was a matter of hours.
But the fun didn’t end there….no sir.
I’ve had the traps set just over a week. I’ve killed just over 3 dozen mice. You saw that right 3-fucking-dozen! 36+ mice in a week. When you kill that many mammals in such a short period of time you learn a few things. I’ll share some of them with you now:
I don’t like the glue traps cause they’re really just amazingly cruel. I don’t like the idea of something starving to death over the period of days. Its too much.
Mice are fairly dumb animals- considering. On at least 4 occations in the last week I’ve scored a two-fer. Two mice, one trap at the same time. That doesn’t always work out for both mice. This morning was the last two-fer and the second mouse, not being in position didn’t really “cross over” as quickly as I’d have liked. it sort of got it on the hind quarter, but it was otherwise kinda fine…just a broken leg it looks like. But in the wild (contrary to the human condition) a broken leg is leathal. That’s easy to forget too.
There have been one or two that really were kinda sad. One of the bigger ones got caught in there backwards. I found it when I got home so I don’t know how long it was there. But after I let it out of the trap into the trash it didn’t live long. And last night, while I was going to sleep, both traps went off simultaneously. They’re in different rooms so that’ makes it even stranger.
At first there were bigger mice but now there are only smaller ones left. Smaller and smaller. Kind of disturbing trend too.
2.0 mentioned this weekend that he often heard mice and thought they were living under one particular cabinet. Well, all I can say is that might have been a useful piece of information. But hey, he probably figured I didn’t care and had my hands full on the other side. So this weekend I’ll have to pull the kickplate off that cabinet and see what kind of rodent ‘watership down’ shit is going on under there. I can’t wait.
Maybe I should just get a fucking cat.
