Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a story on Facebook about an invasion of mice inside our kitchen pantry. Now I’ve been known to rid my yard of varmints that dig tunnels in the lawn with moderate success and have even purchased a tool to effectively ensure their inability to continue their abhorrent behavior. Their capital punishment is a bit savage, but if the tool works properly, I am not required to be the executioner. If it only captures the critter, then I am forced to put it out of its misery, a deed that I do not particularly enjoy. But I can do it when the situation requires it. I feel the same way about mice.
Carlene alerted me to the fact that something had chewed a hole in a bag of rice in our pantry. This was the first invasion that we had noticed, and it was time to get a proper tool to rid the interior of our home of uninvited guests. These little animals have a need to eat as we do, but with the price of groceries these days and the fact that we are retired and on a fixed income, it was time to get some mousetraps. I drove to Ace Hardware to check out the latest technology in the world of “building a better mousetrap”. I never liked the standard mousetraps that they have been selling most of my life. I have used plenty in my lifetime, but never liked them. They were always difficult to load and put in place without snapping on me. I had high hopes that someone had been successful in building a better one by now. Sure enough, Ace is the Place with the helpful hardware man, and there was one that looked like it would fit the bill. I bought a two pack and brought them home.
The traps worked great and before long they had tripped them both. So I reset them in case there were more than two. And more than two there were. Unfortunately for me, I did catch one by the leg, and so I was forced to finish the job. Even though I do not like mice, they are cute little fellas, and it broke my heart to apply the hammer to his sweet little head while he stared me down with those sad eyes. Luckily, he was the only one in the family to not experience immediate euthanasia. Apparently, it was a good size family, as I continued to have to empty the traps regularly for a good week. I lost count, but the death toll was near a dozen. And most of them were quite small. Don’t hate me… I’ve already been scolded by my good friend Nora for not getting a trap that would allow me to catch and release in a safer location. As much as I did not enjoy killing them, letting them loose somewhere else would just give them the opportunity to return, and I wasn’t about to put them on a bus to New York City.
But what about the Siamese Twins? I included a picture as proof. While it is possible and more likely that it was just two siblings that rushed to the peanut butter at the same time, they did pose quite an interesting image. I thought about, and could have, slowly emptied the trap to see if this was an amazing discovery, but I don’t get pleasure out of seeing the evidence of gory slaughter. I just opened the trap over the garbage can and let them drop. Carlene googled it, and there are pictures of Siamese twin mice on the internet. Maybe it’s better that I do not know. Those little buggers could have been joined together at the brain. Not only am I a cruel old man that kills defenseless tiny animals, but I am also an anti research scientist who destroyed the evidence of what could be an important discovery in the animal kingdom. And just because I didn’t want to have to look at the mangled carnage of these sweet little creatures that were only looking for a warm place to stay and just a little bit of our bountiful pantry. I’m a horrible person, how can I live with myself…
