Mousetrap

In order for you to understand the utter hilarity of this story, you MUST make sure you have read about the day Tim's fish died. It's not that I am being bossy, but it makes all the difference to appreciate this story you are about to read.

Now, do you remember that game from back in the 80's, Mousetrap?

You had to get all the pieces working in just the right way or you didn't catch the mouse. Let's just say that my house had a major throw back to the "Mousetrap" last night.

I am terrified of old fashioned mousetraps- the snappy kind. I'm petrified ever since one of them almost broke my fingers when the kids and I first moved into a house we affectionately called "The Diamond House." (There were plywood diamonds as a decorative detail on the front door.) I decided at the time, having children who were 3, 2, and 1 that conventional mousetraps were unsafe- even for Mama. So my Grandpa Bush introduced me to the wonders of sticky traps.

Non toxic and with no moving parts, I learned that sticky traps (or glue traps as some of you may call them) were wonderful at catching 4 legged vermin. I caught mouse after mouse, and my grandpa would dutifully come over every couple of days and put the caught mice into a bucket of water. (The man was a farmer. He had no love for rodents that ate his corn crops. No compassion, either. Now his dogs- that's a different story. They ate steak.)

While I no longer adhere (GROAN) to the bucket of water drowning method, since I am married, I simply let Matt take the glue trap with mouse attached outside and he deals with it. I don't ask, Matt doesn't tell.

So after the mouse hiding under my skillet last week, I knew there was a little critter in the kitchen. I had tried to pinpoint where Mousey was coming and going from. And yesterday afternoon I put 2 sticky traps in the places I figured, made sure they were small enough openings that Puppy (our cat) couldn't get to them, and waited.

I didn't have to wait too long...

About 11pm, Matt and I heard a HUGE ruckus in the kitchen. Such noise that at first we thought someone had broken in to our house. Matt, as the official "Noise Checker-outer" in our house, summoned his courage and peeked around the corner of the kitchen to see what was going on. (We are all still a little gun shy about strange noises since our night in the woods. I think coyotes are busting into the city to exact their revenge on us for screaming so much that night and scaring off any potential meals they would have had.)

He started laughing the second he saw what was making the ruckus, and reported back "It's just Pup. She's... wait... what IS that?"

At that moment, Puppy went bonkers. She dashed off to her litter box, knocked over her food bowl, and came tearing into the low lit living room. And in the dim light, I saw that somehow she had managed to get the glue trap stuck on her paw.

Matt, snickering to himself, started grabbing at Puppy to try and remove the trap. I, being the loving wife that I am, turned on the main light in the living room. And that was when Matt gave a hearty little shout. The trap he was reaching for on Puppy's paw also had a mouse attached to it. Fat little sucker, too.

Then came the Trap Tango- the delicate dance of a trap, a man, and a cat- with a mouse in the middle. Mousey could still move it's head a little, and was trying to gnaw the dickens out of Matt's fingers. And Matt was doing his best do get the stuck trap off poor Pup.

After 10 minutes of failed attempts, we decided that if we could hold the trap, we could cut Puppy's fur from the glue and remove her from her predicament. So that's what we did. I grabbed the trap and pulled it down as far as I could, and Matt delicately cut the fur, trying not to hurt Pup.

We finally got the trap off, and then of course Matt is making googley eyes at the mouse. He's a sucker for animals. I- on the other hand- lean towards the Grandpa Bush stand towards animals. I have killed many a mouse in my day. But if Matt wanted to dig little Mousey out of the glue without killing it first, he had the prerogative. He stepped outside with the trap for a few minutes and then came back inside. He looked a little green in the face, so I didn't ask. I was worried about getting the glue off of Puppy. Because she had begun to lick the glue on her paw, and how had a beard of glue on her chin. Her paw was also stuck to it.

I was gently trying to coax Puppy to let me try and remove the glue, and Puppy didn't trust me at all. It was obvious in her green eyes. She was MAD MAD PISSED MAD. And when she gets like this, it's game over. She will bite your fingers off if she has the chance. So I gave up and just watched her.

Matt took the enlightened man's approach. He googled. And he discovered that if you take peanut butter and rub it on the fur, the glue will come off. So he got the peanut butter, and I- knowing how MAD MAD PISSED MAD Puppy was, I suited up like a Sumo wrestler. I put a sweat shirt over my pajamas, then a bathrobe over my sweat shirt, then Matt's heaviest winter coat over that. I also found the matching gloves in the pocket. They are too big for me, but I had to deal with putting the peanut butter on Puppy anyway. I gave the gloves to Matt, gave him a towel, and we caught Puppy. He wrapped her up like a feisty burrito, and we began the Operation Peanut Butter.

I had the good sense to put my camera on record for this event. Enjoy.