Welcome, Vermin!

“The mouse is an animal which, killed in sufficient numbers under carefully controlled conditions, will produce a PhD thesis.” – The Journal of Irreproducible Results

“Maaaaaa-maaa,” the 10-year-old summoned. “When I was in the basement, something moved. I think it might be – a MOUSE!”

This is the same daughter who paid money for the rodent living upstairs in its own private rodent-Oz, complete with room service, rodent Nautilus equipment and gourmet rodent-chow. This daughter has even been known to hold the rodent against her face. As a practicing rodentphobe, such a sight usually makes me put my head between my knees and take slow, deep breaths. Sometimes I have to lie down.

For me, the word “rodent” evokes two images:
1. Life-enhancing scientific research seeking the cure of r cancer and the perfect makeup foundation base
2. Plague-spreading vermin. (Or three images if you don’t include Presidential candidates in #2…)

But my children love all rodents, from Anatole “The Bravest Mouse in France” to Mickey, “The richest Mouse in Pants”. When we lived in Virginia a few years ago, some local field mice decided to go on the Taub rodent-welfare system. So I bought some standard mousetraps and baited them with cheese and peanut butter. Then of course, I immediately threw them all away. (NOTE: any (obviously childless) person who actually uses this type of trap to catch Cinderella’s tiny helpers is welcome to explain to my children that it works by breaking Feivel, Miss Bianca, Bernard, and even Mighty Mouse’s little backs. While you’re at it, you can tell them who is going to take care of all of Hunca Munca’s baby mousies now.)

At that point, we still had our used cat. In her day, she had been a champion mouser. Since she had failed from kittenhood to demonstrate any signs of intelligence greater than a doorknob, our only theory was that suicidal mice jumped into her mouth. But when we got the puppy, the cat retired from mousing. Maybe she was incensed at losing her MVP (Most Valuable Pet) status. Or maybe we were attracting a more emotionally stable class of vermin.

I had mixed emotions about her retirement. On the one hand, there were all those field mice on the dole in my kitchen. On the other hand, I did save money on shoes. Even with an IQ slightly below that of sweater lint, our cat knew that Little Friskies beat out Little Rodents in taste tests, and thus scorned the option of actually consuming her conquests. Still, she knew we would want to praise her hunting prowess, so she liked to leave the ex-rodents someplace where we would be sure to notice them. Like inside my shoes. I still can’t put on my shoes in the morning without shaking them out first…

I’ll bet the people who invented the better mousetrap weren’t looking for the world to beat a path to their door. They just wanted to be able to look their kids in the eye again. That’s how we felt when we bought the “Have-A-Heart” mousetraps. I don’t have the actual instructions that came with them, but basically the way these work is the following:
1. Every night for weeks you load up the ends of the traps with a three-course gourmet rodent feast – peanut butter, cheese, and chocolate chips.
2. Every night for weeks, the rodents come into the traps, eat everything, burp at the cat, and leave.
3. Finally, the rodents get so obese that they trip the little trap-door.
4. Your husband and kids take a long walk into the fields behind your house. They open the trap and coo over the mouse when he waddles out.
5. The humanely trapped mouse tells all his little mouse pals about this great house where they feed you every night and then take you for rides.
6. The rodents make it back to your house before your husband and kids.

For some reason, the mice finally did disappear. Maybe it had something to do with that rumor I started that your neighbors across the way were baiting their Have-A-Hearts with gourmet cheeses and Godiva chocolates.

Anyway, I have three choices of what to do about our current basement rodent:
1. I can send him a little piece of rodent junk-mail. “Congratulations! You are definitely the lucky winner of one of the following three prizes – a color television, designer luggage, or a dream vacation. All you have to do to claim your prize is take a tour of our new vacation condos upstairs in Rodent-Oz!”
2. I can become a rodent talent scout, and make millions selling book and animations rights (not to mention cartoons, t-shirts and lunch boxes) to his life story.
3. I can go down into the basement and announce that all the presidential candidates were seen buying huge quantities of gourmet cheese and Godiva chocolates…