- May 18, 2001
- 7,886
- 382
- 126
The reign of terror inflicted by the elusive little demon is finally over.
Our property is bounded on two sides by a large field. Every time the field gets mown, there is the inevitable exodus of mice that are driven from their homes into our yard, and from there it is only a short hop and a skip away to our house. Luckily, this happens only twice a year, once in early summer and again towards autumn. So about three weeks ago when I heard the familiar sounds of the farm tractor and its mower attachment, I should have expected what would happen next.
Naturally, I never have the luxury of finding the mouse droppings first. It always has to be found by the person most likely to be insanely hysterical, namely either my wife or my mother-in-law. There is an 80 pound dog that lives in our house and probably carries in more filth from one excursion outside than a mouse will provide in its entire lifetime, but nobody wants to exterminate the dog. However, the mouse must die. It must die right now. It must suffer. Its family and friends must die. Tiny little carcasses must be left behind as a warning to any others. And I, the beleaguered man of the house, must provide physical proof of the carnage because somehow or other I am the one to blame for all the poopy in the cabinet.
So with more than a few grumbles, I found myself crawling around in the dank hellhole that is my house's crawlspace, putting out little trays of my trusted green friend, DCon. It has always provided a most torturous death to previous house invaders, and I reasoned that it would be just a day or two and the victory would be mine and harmony would be restored to the household.
Days passed. Little trails of black mouse crap were replaced with little trails of DCon-green mouse crap. I evilly chuckled to myself, thinking that my revenge was nearly complete. I cleaned up the green crap night after night, knowing that the day the crap didn't need cleaning was the day my job was complete. That day never came. I frantically read the instructions on the DCon box. Four to five days, it said. I waited seven or more, and the green crap arrived on time every morning. Two weeks passed, and it finally occurred to me that the furry little fiend was popping DCon pellets like popcorn, apparently without even the mildest tummyache. DCon had betrayed me. I felt a little dismayed and lost.
The wife decreed: Something Has To Be Done!
So a quick trip to the WalMart later, I came back with a bag full of mousetraps. Nothing inflicts pain and suffocation like a sharp whack to the spine by a flying metal bar (and my wife won't allow me to use that sticky flypaper stuff). So I arranged four traps in a circle around the DCon. Like a junkie jonsing for his crack, the mouse arrived that night looking for his box of green chemical goodness. But the tempting scent of peanut butter lured him to his awful crunching doom, and he went to the great mousehole in the sky a couple of days ago.
Once again, I'm master of my domain.
Our property is bounded on two sides by a large field. Every time the field gets mown, there is the inevitable exodus of mice that are driven from their homes into our yard, and from there it is only a short hop and a skip away to our house. Luckily, this happens only twice a year, once in early summer and again towards autumn. So about three weeks ago when I heard the familiar sounds of the farm tractor and its mower attachment, I should have expected what would happen next.
Naturally, I never have the luxury of finding the mouse droppings first. It always has to be found by the person most likely to be insanely hysterical, namely either my wife or my mother-in-law. There is an 80 pound dog that lives in our house and probably carries in more filth from one excursion outside than a mouse will provide in its entire lifetime, but nobody wants to exterminate the dog. However, the mouse must die. It must die right now. It must suffer. Its family and friends must die. Tiny little carcasses must be left behind as a warning to any others. And I, the beleaguered man of the house, must provide physical proof of the carnage because somehow or other I am the one to blame for all the poopy in the cabinet.
So with more than a few grumbles, I found myself crawling around in the dank hellhole that is my house's crawlspace, putting out little trays of my trusted green friend, DCon. It has always provided a most torturous death to previous house invaders, and I reasoned that it would be just a day or two and the victory would be mine and harmony would be restored to the household.
Days passed. Little trails of black mouse crap were replaced with little trails of DCon-green mouse crap. I evilly chuckled to myself, thinking that my revenge was nearly complete. I cleaned up the green crap night after night, knowing that the day the crap didn't need cleaning was the day my job was complete. That day never came. I frantically read the instructions on the DCon box. Four to five days, it said. I waited seven or more, and the green crap arrived on time every morning. Two weeks passed, and it finally occurred to me that the furry little fiend was popping DCon pellets like popcorn, apparently without even the mildest tummyache. DCon had betrayed me. I felt a little dismayed and lost.
The wife decreed: Something Has To Be Done!
So a quick trip to the WalMart later, I came back with a bag full of mousetraps. Nothing inflicts pain and suffocation like a sharp whack to the spine by a flying metal bar (and my wife won't allow me to use that sticky flypaper stuff). So I arranged four traps in a circle around the DCon. Like a junkie jonsing for his crack, the mouse arrived that night looking for his box of green chemical goodness. But the tempting scent of peanut butter lured him to his awful crunching doom, and he went to the great mousehole in the sky a couple of days ago.
Once again, I'm master of my domain.
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