Mouse Pop, Anyone?

I didn't get to sleep until after five a.m. this morning. Three mice in three days. THREE. The first two showed up between 2:30 and 5:23 Friday morning. The third showed up before I went to bed last night (well, this morning). Nothing like visions of a freaking-out-practically-convulsing-mouse with terrified-bulging-buggy-black-eyes-staring-up-at-me, nothing like visions of THAT dancing through my head to lull me off to sleep.

When I first moved in here (April '05), I thought, "Aaaah... the trees, the woods, the birds, the cute little wild animals, nature. I love nature." And then I notice little black bits laying in the bottom of the little snack bowl I left on my desk last night. "Huh," I said to myself, "I thought I finished that."

After breakfast I went to WalMart & bought eleven mouse traps. The humane ones, of course, being the nature and animal lover that I am. I had a horrible experience trying to rescue a poor, hapless little mouse from one of those wretched glue traps that my mom & dad used to set out on their patio. Mice don't come off of those things very easily (I know that's the point, but tell that to a teenager). (Okay, a 26 year old.) Imagine the body of a mouse coming off of the trap but maybe not an entire foot, even though someone might have carefully cut around a little foot with an X-Acto blade in an attempt to loosen it up some.

Mice Cubes are clear plastic rectangular cubes with a free-swinging door that only opens inward. The mice go in, the little door swings down and closes behind them so they can feed on the peanut butter and Special Navratan Mix to their heart's content, safe inside their new temporary home. When they've finished they attempt to get out of the cube, which causes enough of a racket to wake (me) up at two, three, four, five and yes, even six o'clock in the morning.

My routine: get dressed, pick up cube, coo at adorable little mousey, then risk life and limb crossing back yard out to woods in cold darkness of winter night where I release the precious little life back into the wild.

Now it was suggested to me that, since I live so close to the woods, those very same mice that I'm "feeding and releasing" may be returning, knowing that after they've eaten, they'll get a free ride home. "No," I said, "why would they do that?"---

It was at about the sixth cube when I caught on, with the one-eyed greasy-furred furnace mouse. Startled me when I brought the cube up to my face to coo, "Hi little mousieeee!...good God."

Across to the woods we went, me being more careful than ever as I raised the little door with my bare, exposed fingers to let him out. That was around 4 a.m.

I've been throwing out the cubes after each use. My intention was to reuse them, but there's no way I'm going to scrub all the mouse crap out of any of them at this point. It's just not sanitary.

5:59 a.m. I got up, got dressed again, traced the scratching back to the furnace room (again), retrieved the cube - from the same location (in front of the furnace), looked inside to coo, and Jesus, God Almighty, the same creepy one-eyed greasy-furred mouse is staring up at me as if to say with what I'm sure would be with a slobbering lisp, "I love this place, the food here is fabulous. I'd like to be taken home now, please, if you don't mind."

That was the first mouse I put into the outside trash bin, alive. Friday morning's first mouse, which chewed through its cube and subsequently through the trash bin, was the last. Friday morning's second mouse, which was HUGE (pregnant?!), went somewhere else. Cube and all. There was no way I was about to get dressed AGAIN just to dump that thing in the trash - the trash that it'd probably chew its way out of to join me in my bed where it can give birth to a dozen more little chewing mice.

It's something how nicely glue traps fit into freezer bags, even with a mouse attached. I guess this morning's mouse is ready to go outside in the trash bin now, unless...? (See title.)