Captured

I don’t know how mice do this, but they seem to toy with you when you try to catch them. It’s pretty amazing, actually, and a testament to their survival instinct. It almost makes them seem smarter than us. The act in question is how a mouse manages to steal the bait off of a mouse trap and not set the thing off. Granted, it’s a humane trap, which is not as deadly and effective as the lethal kind, but it’s still pretty impressive how they can enter the trap and then abscond with the food without triggering it. It’s a little beyond me.

I’ve experienced this before in NYC, where I had a mouse and it did the same thing. Personally, I think it was taunting me, but I shouldn’t give it too much credit. I managed to catch it purely by luck, because I startled it and it had nowhere to run and hide but directly into the trap. Now I’m dealing with a country mouse, which is probably way more savvy because it has to contend with nature’s wrath. I pale in comparison as an adversary.

Anyway, it foiled me once, so we had to change our tact a bit. I originally put some nuts on the bait tray, but it grabbed them and ran. This time, as per R and N’s suggestion, I put peanut butter on the tray and then rested a nut on that. How brilliant was that?

There was one false alarm, whereby the mouse didn’t get the bait, but managed to set off the trap. I figured that was the end of and she was on to us, but tried one more time. This morning when I went out to check the trap, victory was on our side. There, inside the trap, was the little rascal. I’m not sure if she was the only one, somehow I doubt it, but at least we’ve depleted their ranks.

I’ll let it go outside, and then set the trap one more time, just for good measure. Hopefully that will be end of this saga, but somehow I doubt it. Soon, the ants will be back, as well.

Until then, thanks for reading.