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Man VS. Beast

September 27, 2006 |

When your parents live in the middle of nowhere you grow accustomed to certain run-ins with mother nature.

We have an unfinished basement with a forced air furnace so there is ductwork exposed everywhere. A few weeks back I was in the basement watching TV, when I heard a rustling from above. Suddenly this bird comes flip flapping out from somewhere in the ducts the lay above.

I really didn’t know what to do about it. Eventually I opened the window and it figure out how to get out. This isn’t the only case of man VS. beast at my house lately.

Up until recently, we had an unwanted tenant living with us. A little mouse who had a taste for deep fried food.

Now, honestly, I’m not the kinda’ guy who sees an animal in his territory and goes “Kill the fucker.” No, I’m much more the type of guy who figures that we can live in harmony. And we could have. Had he not been pooping where he felt like it. If this had been any other tenant, one that I could reason with, I would have simply given him an ultimatum.

“Dude you gotta’ stop pooping everywhere or else you’re out.” But having this conversation with a mouse just seems pointless.

So we had to stock up on some of the old Road Runner and coyote endorsed Acme Mousetraps (actually they were Victors but I wanted Acme).

I really want to stress before I go into any detail I want to express that I am a huge fan of rodents. I used to have a pet rat named Tim, who I was very fond of, but he and I had an understanding about where he pooped. I mean seriously! Had I been pooping all over the place my parents would have kicked me out ages ago. Now, on with the story.

So it actually turns out there are good and bad mousetraps. There are these Victors with what they call a “cheese pedal” that just plain DO NOT WORK.

We were doing the equivalent of leaving food out for this little guy. You can barely set this thing off manually, imagine the weight of a tiny mouse springing this sucker. It claims to have firm and sensitive mode but the only thing this trap managed to fool was our dog (several times).

The directions said not to put food on it but that just left us with very strange looking paperweights all over our home. So we loaded ‘er up with peanut-butter *apparently mouse bait* and waited to see. Basically all the happened was little mousy filled up on peanut butter once a night and neglected to set the trap off.

So we moved models to the trusty old “bait pedal” brand. These guys are fool-proof. You can barely put it down without setting it off. So I loaded one with good ol’ PB, and another with some home-cooked sausage.

Well it turns out mice have a taste for meat. Does that get the point across? No? OK well I found him caught with the trap flipped right upside down and his mouth still wide open ready to take in the meaty goodness. Get the picture? He did NOT see this coming. After some thought I have decided not to post any pictures of my triumph over rodent kind.

Honestly, after the victor’s victory… I felt a little bit of postmortem depression. I thought maybe if I was better at communication we could have worked it out. I also felt that if I had been there to hear the trap go off I could have siad “Gotcha fucker!” and it might have been a little more worthwhile.

Tagged : Random

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