If you give a mouse a cookie,
He’s going to ask for a glass of milk.
When you give him the milk, he’ll probably ask you for a straw.
When he’s finished, he’ll ask for a napkin.
Then he will want to look in a mirror to make sure he doesn’t have a milk mustache.
Thus begins a favorite book by Laura Joffe Numeroff. I used to read this to #2 son and we'd always laugh at the ending.
Last week, however, I wasn't laughing. Late Thursday afternoon, I opened my pantry for some reason and saw something move. I had some items stacked precariously on one shelf and thought something had slid out of place. However, upon closer examination, I found myself face to face with this:
I was not amused. I had no mouse traps. I didn't have any problems last fall. So I called the office here at Weston Ranch and asked if mouse trapping was provided by maintenance or was I responsible for that. Maintenance Guy was soon at my door with a new-fangled plastic, disposable trap that we baited with peanut butter (Earth Fare brand with no high fructose corn syrup) and left on the pantry floor. An hour or so later, I saw something scurry along the outside wall of my living room and was concerned I had more than one rodent.
Apparently there's a mouse epidemic because one home improvement store just down the way was fresh out of regular traps. I didn't want the more expensive disposable ones, especially if this was going to be an ongoing problem (ohdeardogpleaseno!). The other store, which is right in front of my apartment complex, had plenty and I also bought a two-pack of plug-in ultrasonic pest repellent units. Hey, I'll do whatever it takes to keep the mice away.
I baited two more traps, put them in strategic spots, plugged the repellents in and then waited.
I woke up the next morning with traps still set. Rats! I mean, mice!
I had to leave for a while for lunch with a friend who was here from out of town, and when I got back, the traps I'd put out were still set, HFCS-free peanut butter untouched.
But when I opened the pantry to throw away my junk mail, BINGO! The beady-eyed little varmint had nibbled and let's just say he didn't return home because he got caught up in something else. I have a photo but I'll spare you the details. I did post it on Facebook since my friends there were following my great mouse adventure. One guy commented "First corpus delicti photo I've seen on facebook!"
To be sure I'd eradicated the mouse population, I re-baited two traps and placed them on the pantry floor. And ever since all I've been doing is feeding the mice very expensive peanut butter. Somehow they're eating the peanut butter and not springing the traps. Upon the advice of a Facebook friend, last night I tossed the trap that had already caught a mouse and used another from the pack of four I bought. She said sometimes the triggering mechanism loses it's sensitivity and an elephant couldn't set it off.
So my mouse tale has spared you from more trivia as I continue to work toward 50,000 words and that ever-desirable "You're a Winner!" screen on the NaNoWriMo website. I'm at the halfway point!
Had any animal adventures lately? (And Smarty Pants, Problem Child and Instigator are excused from this exercise because we all know they've had animal adventures galore. ~grin~)
NaNo Word Count
