The cooler weather has brought falling leaves, gray skies and the need for warmer surroundings. Many seniors are packing up their belongings and heading south for the winter. The kids are digging coats out of the closet and I'm starting to dust off my blue jeans in preparation of exchanging them for my coveted shorts.

The squirrels are hiding acorns in our yard and to my recent surprise, a neighborly mouse decided to take up residency in our laundry room. My hot wife was zipping through the living room just days ago when she spotted the fast moving varmint scurrying across the floor heading to the laundry room. Once there, he planted himself behind the washer and began to set up his new little bachelor pad.

My hot wife was not having any part of a furry little rat like creature running about the house. On day one I was not to worried. I actually hoped the little guy would leave by the same hole he crawled in through. Unfortunately, late that night under the cover of darkness, he ventured deep into our house somehow finding his way to our bedroom.

Let's just say that the sound of a disease infested mouse running around our bedroom at 3 a.m. in the morning was not the comfort I was looking for. Hot wife practically crawled on top of me (which was not all that bad) and barely slept the rest of the night. Of course it was my duty as man of the house to rid our happy home of this tiny invader.

I set out on day two to buy mouse traps. Mouse traps. You know, those funny wooden things with the hair trigger metal kill bar. I grabbed two traps and headed home knowing it would only be hours and our guest would be gone.

I've set traps before and quickly lathered a bit of peanut butter on the yellow kill spot. I very carefully pulled the kill bar back and set the spring. I was now at the crucial point of letting the kill bar go without it whacking the snot out of my finger. Like the Flash, I let go really fast and grabbed the wooden part of the trap. Mission accomplished. This was going to be a cake walk.

I very, very slowly lowered the trap next to the washing machine and oh so carefully pushed it back with a broom handle. There it was, ready to snap the neck of any critter brave enough to take the bait. I left the trap and the room satisfied that I had done my job.

Later in the day I tiptoed back into the laundry room to eye my catch. As I peaked around the corner of the washer there it was... a very empty mouse trap. Not only was there not a mouse, there wasn't a spec of peanut butter. That little booger had licked the mouse trap clean and left the kill bar locked in its kill position.

I grabbed my broom handle and used it to drag the mousetrap back into the open. This ritual went on through the end of day two and carried over to day three. Each time I would load the trap with peanut butter and my new compadre would lick it clean. I even tried setting two traps next to each other so he would have to go over one to get the goods off the second one. Of course he did this in no time flat actually setting off the first trap to get it out of his way. I began to get the idea that these traps were wound a little to tight. At one point I thumped the trap repeatedly and it never triggered the kill bar. Okay, so these traps were created for 30 pound rats.

At least I knew where the mouse was and we had him secluded to the laundry area. Hot wife got a bit tired of my enjoyment in feeding the mouse so she ran out and bought some new traps. The new traps had space age looking hoods on them and required the putting of the peanut butter on the roof of the hood. Well, half way through day four Mr. Mouse got hungry again and went for hot wife's new trap. Zap!

Yes, in one split second my adversary was gone. From the look of the twisted body it was probably a broken back compounded by a skull fracture in conjunction with a collapsed lung. He was gone and my mouse caper was over. On a happy note, he died with a full stomach and just a smidgen of peanut butter on his chin.

Labels: funny moment