FOUR BEFORE BED

This post is rated PG14. Some information may be distasteful to some readers.

So – the pears spent a couple of days in the refrigerator, and then I put them in a retired and dilapidated cardboard ornament box I found in the attic. Once loaded the box was heavy, so I pulled it into the dining room and put it under the bar.

“Whoa!” said Nellie as she passed the box. “I smell a mouse. Take the lid off and let me check it out.”

I nervously complied with her request. She sniff, sniff, sniffed, then looked me in the eye and said, “There’s a mouse in this box but I can’t get to it for the pears.”

 

“You just think you smell mouse because the box has been in the attic,” I told her.

“Hmph!” she said, as I put the lid back on the box. “My nose hardly ever deceives me.” Her certainty made me nervous.

When I finished the supper dishes, I proceeded to stage the night’s battle against the mice. I set a plate of crumbs beside the toaster and surrounded it with three traps. More would need to be done at bedtime when Nellie was out of the house and my second in command would reload some of the traps.

Then I carried my laptop to the living room to enjoy the evening’s messages and maybe do a little armchair shopping. A message came in from daughter Hallie regarding a land auction in the Gilbert region. “Is this near you?” she asked, and Mike paused the football game to help me contemplate the maps and pictures.

Then I heard it -- an unmistakable rustle near the kitchen – and the box of pears immediately leapt to mind. Cautiously checking it out, I thought I saw a shadowy movement and then I saw it for sure as it ducked around the corner to disappear under the stove. Oh listen! – I write about this stuff, but I’m totally freaked out here! I called to Mike and he came.

Okay – something has to happen with this box of pears, I told Mike. He thought we could just set it up higher, but I explained that the enemy is quite capable of climbing. (It’s my study of the enemy’s capabilities as well as trapping methods that makes me the general and battle tactician.) Together we carried the heavy box out to the back of the pick-up. Probably not a bad thing anyway because I think we’re going to have to take them to town. Then Mike decided that we needed more traps on the floor. As he worked to set them up, he spied movement in the mechanical room. You know how the enemy is – such quick, shadowy little creatures that it makes you question what you saw – and sometimes your sanity. Mike made sure to set one trap at the left corner of the stove.

We had just settled down in the living room again when SNAP! That trap near the stove had done its thing. Whereas yesterday’s catch were large, healthy adults, this was a little one. “There won’t be just one little one,” I told my colonel, and he agreed. The trap was re-set again in the same spot. We turned out the lights and returned to the living room. SNAP! – and another young ‘un bit the dust.

 

“These little guys are incredibly stupid,” observed Mike, as he re-set the trap and retired from the battleground. This time a scuffle called Mike back to the kitchen where Numbers Three and Four were fighting over the bait on the trap, which snapped Number Three. Yup – it only remained to trap Number Four, and he was gone with the next re-set.

 

We found Number Five in the same trap this morning.

Mike says we have to remove the stove drawer and clean. I said he would have to help me. I might be a general, but I can’t face some things alone. KW