Mouse Hunt

There is a very funny movie called The Mouse Hunt, in which Nathan Lane and Lee Evans are outsmarted by some very crafty mice into destroying the house they hope to sell for a lot of money. I was reminded forcibly of that movie when my sister and I tried to catch one small mouse that had invaded her house in North Carolina.

He was actually a very pretty little field mouse with a grayish-brown back, shiny black eyes, and a white tummy, but my sister was not enamored of his mousey charms. Every time he scampered across her floor, she jumped and gave a little screech. Clearly, he needed to be ousted.

We tried catching him in a little cardboard box to relocate him to the Great Outdoors, but he was resistant. At first, he wouldn't go in.  Then, he went in but scooted right back out before I could close the box. When we modified the box and baited it with an almond, the little bugger ate the almond while we weren't looking and refused further sorties into the box.

Finally, we decided that only an old fashioned trap would do. We went to the hardware store and, sadly, they were out of live traps, so we purchased an old fashioned snap trap. Deadly, but at least it promised a quick end. 

I baited it with peanut butter and put it behind the sofa, the mouse's favorite hiding place. I lay awake that night for an hour, awaiting the sound of the trap snapping in the dark, but finally drifted off without hearing a sound. The reason became clear in the morning - Mousie had delicately licked off all the peanut butter without setting off the trap!  

Baited again with cheese this time, we had the same result - both cheese and Mousie were gone and the trap was not tripped.  Grrrr!  And, to add injury to insult, I snapped the damned trap on my thumb while trying to reset it.

The final time, we were successful. The peanut butter lured him in and the trap did its work - we found his stiff little body in the morning of the third day. We took his sad little corpse outside and donated it to the Universe, hoping some wild creature would get a meal or his body would return to the soil.  Triumphant, still we were saddened.

A day or two later, a Facebook friend linked to this video on YouTube. Maybe he's in Mouse Heaven doing this:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cheese+advertisement+mouse&oq=chee&gs_l=youtube.1.0.35i39j0l4j0i10j0j0i3j0l2.10293.10966.0.13799.4.4.0.0.0.0.421.738.0j3j4-1.4.0...0.0...1ac.1.5q5kgC_w5Gs