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Friday, Nov. 15, 2002 - 7:51 p.m. Before you read any further, please be forewarned- description of cute little creatures and their deaths will be described in the paragraph below. Furry, cuddly creatures that wreak havoc at my workplace are exterminated. If you are a big Fivel Mouskowitz fan, if you think that Mickey Mo-use is you role model, if you think nothing is more adorable than film of a field mouse, nibbling on a acorn: this entry is NOT for you! The subject matter contained below might send you into a tizzy (do people still go into tizzies?), you might break out in a cold sweat, and you might want to turn me into the fine folks at P.E.T.A (recently seen on a t-shirt {}-front �I Love Animals!� back �They�re Delicious!�). Facts are facts, and the facts contained below might change your opinion of little mice (or of me). You have been given fair warning (Not Van Halen�s best album, either) . . . . . . . . . . . . Every fall, those evil little rodents overrun the storage. They announce their presence by leaving their droppings all over the lunch counter, the computer center, and my personal desk. In the past, they have chewed holes in our ceiling tiles, built nests in drawers left open in the office and in the legs of coveralls in lockers, and eaten any form of food left unattended anywhere in the building. So the goal of the toolroom guy is to try to eliminate the rodents (don�t forget- their close cousins the rats spread Plague through Europe in the middle ages). Beavis is a big fan of sticky traps, which I am not. I think that they are inhumane, for one thing. It�s like the mouse steps into a �rodent tar pit� that slowly kills the critters. They start with one paw trapped, and by the time you find them one entire side of their body is stuck, while the mouse tries in vain to escape. It�s a form of torture. Let�s see how long it takes for it to die! Not my style. Beavis had already placed them in strategic locations around the offices, and had caught a couple of mice in them in the past few weeks. So, not only are they a cruel way to kill a fellow mammal, they aren�t very effective, either. After finding one victim (still breathing and wiggling) in one of Beavis�s traps on Wednesday, I decided to take control of the situation. I picked up a 4-pack of the old standby, the spring-loaded trap, after work. Thursday, I brought them to work with me. I also brought a jar of Jiffy peanut butter (smooth, for those keeping score) to bait the traps. I picked up Beavis�s sticky traps, and I replaced them with the new, quick-kill ones. By the time we went home last night I had caught one, with two more of the traps triggered and baitless. Yeah, they�re tricky. I grew up on Tom and Jerry cartoons, so I already knew this fact. This morning, all four traps were sprung. Three contained dead field mice. I re-baited and reset them all. By the time we went home, I had to remove one more, with another tripped and stripped. When I arrive at work Monday, I know all 4 will be sprung again. Cruel? I don�t see it that way. You have to protect the taxpayer�s investment (the storage), and you can�t keep them out. With doors open all day during the fall, they can stroll in at their convenience. If they have to die, this is the quickest, least Sadistic method I know of�� One last mousetrap story. Many years ago, during a exceptionally bad winter, the storage was overrun with mice seeking comfort inside. I had my sunflower seeds on the top shelf of my lockers , and came in one day to find the entire bag devoured, with the shells all over my other belongings. Yeay, I know: it�s my fault. If I had closed my locker, they couldn�t have got inside and caused the damage. So, I decided I would get try to catch the mouse that did this to me. I brought one of the spring-loaded traps in from home (yeah, we get mice in our garage here at home, too. Not the house, thankfully). I baited it with a few sunflower seeds. Before we left the area for our assignments, the trap sprung. One less mouse to eat the food hid in my locker. When I came back in off the road later that day, another mouse to dispose of awaited me. Next morning, another. This went on for about a month, more or less daily. By that time, the numbers had been thinned out pretty good. I stopped setting the trap after it went a week or so without being tripped. Final death toll? 57. 57 mice in one small trap underneath my locker. You read my �journal� often, and you know I am not a hunter. I don�t have �real� guns, and I don�t care to shoot a large animal. It�s just not me. But mice? They fear me����..
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