damomoo

One of these days I'm gonna have to buy me a mousetrap

We're both home after a long day. The wife had a gig and I worked at the arena. This morning at 8:30 I drove out to Benicia and took batting practice with my teammates. My swing is coming back around and I'm hitting the ball pretty well, down and hard. That was for about 2 1/2 hours, pitching, hitting, fielding and cracking jokes. I went back to the Double V after that and stopped off at Wal-Mart, yes, Wal-Mart. I know, I know.

I just went to buy some mousetraps. New story. On my way to Benicia, the wife called me, terrified about a mouse that she saw. We live right by a field so you just know that they'll find their way out to the homes. After the first scream she screamed again, "There's two of them!" Previously I bought some of those mice boxes that are really sticky and are supposed to catch them but I think they were just laughing at me. I even tried putting peanut butter in them to coax them. It kinda worked because I saw one box moved from it's original spot, but the mouse got away, losing some hair in the process. After telling my softball buddies about my predicament with the mice, my old friend Eddy said to get the old school one, the snapper, and put cheese. So I went to Wal-Mart and bought 2 4-packs for a total of 2 bucks. Cheap! Probably on the backs of Chinese labor, I know. Anyways, I put the cheese in its place and I set the traps, four in total. By this time the wife thought that there might be three so they were all over the house. I got ready for work at the Destiny's Child concert (I'll post about that later) and the wife got ready for the gig.

After getting home around 1:30am, we got the kids in their bed and I proceeded to check on the traps. Sure enough, under the kitchen sink, behind the tv and in the jacket closet, 3 mice, all snapped. It wasn't a pretty picture so I didn't take one. I thought about it, but out of respect to the mice I just couldn't do it. I felt bad already that I had to kill them. After realizing what I had done I just stood there thinking about these dead animals. No they weren't pets but they were just looking for food. I do know that with mice, you just cannot let them take over your house, so it had to be done. I thought about getting a cat but the wife and I are allergic to them. The boys are probably allergic as well. Plus, with a cat they might walk up to you with a half-eaten mouse in their mouth or find it in the corner of the room somewhere. A couple thing ran through my head after seeing the mice: Mickey Mouse, Fievel from American Tail, Three Blind Mice. It made me feel worse. I think I'm just turning soft. And although I had thoughts of a proper burial, we just tossed them out, trap and all.

Thinking through it, and after putting it all here, I realize that it's the hurricanes that's making me sad. There's already been so much death and destruction that I just felt horrible about adding to it. No, the mice are not as important as people. I do feel a little better now but I'll have to be prepared to do it again.

posted by DJ John @ 2:25 AM