Monday, November 28, 2005
This weekend I was lying in bed and heard some paper rustling. I go to the kitchen to see what it is only to find a bag of open crackers. I think little of it except that I must have not closed them very well last night.
Later I was lying on the couch reading the paper. All of a sudden, I catch something out of the corner of my eye, and I turn to look down the hallway to see a mouse running across the floor.
A mouse?! In MY apartment.
A MOUSE. . . . a fucking mouse, not just in my apartment, but in my $2,100 a month Manhattan apartment that I just spent the last month making into my little dream flat.
The adrenalin begins to pump and anger and fear begin to formulate a plan: I’m going to kill that mouse with my bare hands!
I grab a shoe (okay, maybe not bare hands) and run over toward where I saw Jerry run. I pull the sofa away from the wall to see the bastard dart right in front of me and down the hall. I throw the shoe – he escapes unscathed into the hallway closet.
Time to get into that closet. I open the door and begin to move the begging stored in it.
I finally see the mouse. Bastard! Just as I pull enough shit out of the closet to take aim, two pictures being stored there fall toward it. This frightens Jerry, who runs out of the closet like a bat out of hell into the bedroom.
He’s nowhere to be found.
Escaped!
This is war!
I’m clearly not nimble enough to kill him this way: I must shed this Neanderthal strategy and use my mind a bit. I can do that, right? Yes. . . yes, I can. I go down to the store to buy traps.
Nowadays they have these glue pads that must kill the rodents through starvation or something. Seems cruel, but I’m desperate. I also find the old fashioned mousetraps that merely crush it. So I buy both types –I don’t want to take any chances— Jerry won’t know what hit him. I buy 6 traps.
I get back to the apartment and bait the traps – putting a nut on each of them. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for the little bastard’s appetite to bring him to his death. Yes, the triumph of intelligence over primal instinct – that is what separates us from the animals!
Watching a movie, I hear nothing. No traps going off, no squeaking from a mouse stuck in glue. I double check the traps after the movie anyhow. They hadn’t gone off. I look a little closer.
Wait a minute, the bait is gone!
My God, he managed to snag the bait without triggering the trap. In both of the traps!
Are these traps defective? No, a quick check using a pencil shows they work. Every problem has a solution. . . I need something that will adhere better to the trap so he has to pull a little on it, which will definitely set the trap off. But what would a mouse like to eat that would stick that well on the trigger? Hmmmmm.
Cheeseball!
Yes, a cheeseball will do it. I run to the store and get a cheddar cheeseball and mush the bait around the trigger of the trap.
I wait. Nothing.
The evening grew longer and no sign of a trap. I went out on the town with Rob to get my mind off the whole thing.
I finally get home at about two in the morning. I, excitedly, turn on the kitchen l0ight and check.
And there he was. His little head crushed under the trap in a pool of spattered on the floor. Uug, disgusting. All of a sudden I felt a triumph: like Tosca when she kills scarpia:
Mordi! Mordi! Mordi! (Die, die, die)
Don’t fuck with me fellas!
Later I was lying on the couch reading the paper. All of a sudden, I catch something out of the corner of my eye, and I turn to look down the hallway to see a mouse running across the floor.
A mouse?! In MY apartment.
A MOUSE. . . . a fucking mouse, not just in my apartment, but in my $2,100 a month Manhattan apartment that I just spent the last month making into my little dream flat.
The adrenalin begins to pump and anger and fear begin to formulate a plan: I’m going to kill that mouse with my bare hands!
I grab a shoe (okay, maybe not bare hands) and run over toward where I saw Jerry run. I pull the sofa away from the wall to see the bastard dart right in front of me and down the hall. I throw the shoe – he escapes unscathed into the hallway closet.
Time to get into that closet. I open the door and begin to move the begging stored in it.
I finally see the mouse. Bastard! Just as I pull enough shit out of the closet to take aim, two pictures being stored there fall toward it. This frightens Jerry, who runs out of the closet like a bat out of hell into the bedroom.
He’s nowhere to be found.
Escaped!
This is war!
I’m clearly not nimble enough to kill him this way: I must shed this Neanderthal strategy and use my mind a bit. I can do that, right? Yes. . . yes, I can. I go down to the store to buy traps.
Nowadays they have these glue pads that must kill the rodents through starvation or something. Seems cruel, but I’m desperate. I also find the old fashioned mousetraps that merely crush it. So I buy both types –I don’t want to take any chances— Jerry won’t know what hit him. I buy 6 traps.
I get back to the apartment and bait the traps – putting a nut on each of them. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for the little bastard’s appetite to bring him to his death. Yes, the triumph of intelligence over primal instinct – that is what separates us from the animals!
Watching a movie, I hear nothing. No traps going off, no squeaking from a mouse stuck in glue. I double check the traps after the movie anyhow. They hadn’t gone off. I look a little closer.
Wait a minute, the bait is gone!
My God, he managed to snag the bait without triggering the trap. In both of the traps!
Are these traps defective? No, a quick check using a pencil shows they work. Every problem has a solution. . . I need something that will adhere better to the trap so he has to pull a little on it, which will definitely set the trap off. But what would a mouse like to eat that would stick that well on the trigger? Hmmmmm.
Cheeseball!
Yes, a cheeseball will do it. I run to the store and get a cheddar cheeseball and mush the bait around the trigger of the trap.
I wait. Nothing.
The evening grew longer and no sign of a trap. I went out on the town with Rob to get my mind off the whole thing.
I finally get home at about two in the morning. I, excitedly, turn on the kitchen l0ight and check.
And there he was. His little head crushed under the trap in a pool of spattered on the floor. Uug, disgusting. All of a sudden I felt a triumph: like Tosca when she kills scarpia:
Mordi! Mordi! Mordi! (Die, die, die)
Don’t fuck with me fellas!
# posted by otas : 2:53 PM
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