Monday, April 18, 2011

Mouse Trap

Do you remember that game Mousetrap? In fact, I think they still sell it. It was totally a rad game but sneezus christ, it took a mother f-ing long time to set up. Honestly, what 6 year old, who is truly excited to play and see all the bells and whistles, is going to want to take the time to set it up? No one I tell ya; therefore, the game never really took. A parent wasn't about to set it up, they are doing the laundry and cleaning up the previous mess from when the kid was playing with his/her 5,478 Lincoln Logs (which mind you, they still also make!).

Anywho, that is not where I was going with all this. So let me take some giant steps back to the beginning.

As you should well know, we live in the County. Good ol' folk who pitch the hay and round up the cows for milkin' time. We are also folk that have dead mice, shrew, and other various small animals laying dead in our driveway, on the porch, on the steps, in the grass, and.....fuck.....in the mother f-ing house! Now, we are mostly cleanly people and we don't attract mice in the house but sometimes when you aren't looking the cats are buttholes and they bring in a half dead shrew.

This happened a couple weeks ago.

The story went a little something like this:

I call Mr Pepperworth because he is in the shop doing god-knows-what (something manly, like grunting) and I wanted to let him know his loving wife is home from a honest day's work. As I am doing so, I let Stanley inside because he has been out. I get off the phone and turn around toward the living room only to find Simon with something fury and black in his mouth. It takes me about two seconds to realize it is a mice and Stanley obviously brought it in because he gave it to Simon and went to go lay down on the bed, obviously after getting a crisp $10 bill from Simon.

I pick the phone right back up and have a conversation with Mr Pepperworth that went something like this:
Me - Oh god, Oh god
MP - silence
Me - (more dramatic) Oh god, there is a mouse in the house. Stanley brought a mouse in the house.
MP- Okay
Me - You need to get up here RIGHT NOW and get it. Oh gosh, oh gosh, AAAH
MP- *already hung up*

After what was much too long of a time, Mr Pepperworth gets his sweet butt in the house and has devised a plan. Since the mouse had gotten away of Simon, it ran under the couch. Mr Pepperworth decided to block off all exits besides the front door. We (he, really) would lift the couch, scare the nasty bugger and it would go out the front door. That was all fine and dandy.



Except that the mouse didn't come out. Was it still under the couch? Oh shit. We looked around although I refused to move anything. What is worse than a helpless mouse running out of the shadows straight through your legs to the shadow behind you? Nothing, nothing is worse. We didn't find it in the dark corners.

It finally dawned on us that the mouse must be IN the couch. The damn children have ripped holes in the bottom as kittens while they thought it would be fun to f with. So the mouse was in the couch and wouldn't come out. I then decided to put Simon in the couch to verify the mouse was in fact there.

Simon entering

It took Simon about 30 seconds to find the damn thing and start batting it around. It was obvious the mouse was in the couch....and it wasn't having fun. Simon was though.

Mr Pepperworth wanted to let Simon kill the thing and I said, "oh hell no, I am not going to be searching for mouse pieces over the coming years." So Mr Pepperworth had to tear a bigger hole in the bottom of the couch to extract Simon, then he extracted the mouse. Mouse went outside and on the lawn....from which he never moved.

Poor Mouse.
Good Simon.

2 comments:

TheAnut said...

From this post, I gather that you don't like mice much. Good that you found it before it passed away, though ... departed rodents really smell bad ! I'm still trying to get my head around your phone calls to Mr. Pepperworth in the shop. Are you cell-phoning, can with string phoning, little walkie-talkie phoning, or is their an actual landline phone in the shop? Just wondering. We, too, have had our share of a mouse in the house and they do scamper. Simon did do a good job!

Gevan said...

All I can say is... every grandchild of mine WILL have "Lincoln Logs". If they are very lucky, they will be handcrafted from home-grown wood (the logs, not the kids, duh...)