AJ vs. The Mouse, Round 2

When I arrived home from work on Friday afternoon, this is what I found, along with a note saying, "I hope these work!"


In my head, I was thinking, "Really...you actually expect me to stick glue pads around the apartment to catch the mouse. I really don't want to see the mouse. I really don't want to think about how awful it would be to hear the mouse or to know the mouse is struggling to die." Definitely not cool. So, I headed to the store to buy some actual mouse traps that I thought would work perfectly. I ended up with these.

I put some string cheese in the trap for bait. I figured if the mice were willing to get in the garbage to mess with my string cheese wrappers, that string cheese might actually catch them. I set 4 traps around the apartment and then proceeded to go on with my day, which included working out and tearing my calf. That made for a LONG night of no sleep. It also involved getting up every so often to check the traps to see if I caught a mouse.

On Saturday morning, when I decided to get out of bed for the day, I hobbled into the kitchen and checked the traps. This is what I found.

As you can see from the red mark on the trap, I had caught a mouse. I got a little freaked out, but I could not do the heebie jeebie dance because my leg wouldn't straighten or bear any weight. I was trying to figure out how to deal with this mouse trap without getting all grossed out. I'm actually doing the heebie jeebie dance in my chair right now just thinking about it. I grabbed my broom and swept the trap out onto the kitchen tiles. I scanned my kitchen for anything that would allow me to not actually have to touch the trap with my hands. I didn't really feel like walking to the bathroom to find my rubber gloves, but I did find a granola bar box that was almost empty. I proceeded to empty the box, set it on the floor, and swept the trap into the box.

Once the trap was in the box, I picked up the box, did the heebie jeebie dance sort of and dropped the box into the trash, scrubbed my hands twice, and then took the garbage out. I also scrubbed my hands again.

So, I won round 2. The mouse is dead and gone. I still have 3 more baited traps hanging around the apartment, just in case... Oh, and my landlords graciously left me some more of these.


Yeah...like they'll ever get used in my world...