Wrinkly Bits
A Blog by Gail Cushman
Originally posted 2/18/26
Mice are such cute little critters, filled with evil and nastiness not to mention disease and disaster. With the warm weather we have been hosting, I have had more than my share of them. My share is zero, and I’ve had two. Dead, they are, after weeks of luring them into the perfect mousetrap.
Chip, the first one, wandered into the house, through the front door but leaving the front door open was not my fault. It was one of those warm February days (about 75 degrees, I think and the weatherman had failed with his daily report about snow and the little guy decided to take a look at our house. Chip casually strutted in, tail curled, high above his head and looked at me and I could have sworn he winked. I was in the middle of writing something profound, and at a loss as how to get rid of him. Step on him? Kick him to kingdom come? Make good use of one of Cowboy’s several shotguns and blast a hole in him or put an empty coffee cup over him (I saw a server do that in a restaurant once. Ewww). He noticed my desperation and took off in a hurry. I looked around and didn’t see anything that would help me, like a broom, or glue pads and he totally disappeared. I let loose with a few swear words, but that didn’t help. Chip was gone.
We had traps (the old-fashioned snappers) in key places, but the Chip had grown wise to the snappers and came through the open door. Traps. Sticky pads. Off we went to the Hardware store, looking to see if someone had invented the perfect mouse trap. And the nice young clerk said, “Yes, somebody has and it works. Right this way,” and she led us to a large shelf in the “pest department” with a sign that said, “The mousetrap that works.” It cost under $10 and didn’t look promising, but I said we would give it a try. It was a 4”x8”x2” metal box, with a mouse-sized gate, about 2”. The mouse would go in and would be unable to get out. A little unhealthy poison for him to dine on, and he’d be a goner. The clerk smiled, “Another added benefit is that it holds up to 75 mice.” Oh, Boy. I looked at Cowboy, “If we get 75 mice in our perfect trap, I’m moving back to Idaho.”
I put the trap near where I thought Chip might be, and two days later, the little critter was in. Scraps of poison littered the floor and I felt like a big game hunter, without even taking out the shotgun. Cowboy was afraid that my threat to move back to Idaho would happen, so he disposed of Chip. “Sleep well, my friend,” I said as Cowboy tossed Chip in the trash bin.
This was easy, I thought and went back to the hardware store to buy all the mouse-trap boxes. They appeared to work pretty well and Cowboy laid them out in strategic places. We hadn’t seen any more mice, but in my mind, when it comes to mice, you can’t be too careful. The other 74 little nippers might appear without warning and I’d be stuck.
I was right, a few days later, we met Dale. He was in the bathroom trap. The perfect mouse trap had become even more perfect with a window on the top, so I could watch the little guy meet his demise. He looked up at me and swished his white tail, as if to say, “Yup, I’m here and you couldn’t stop me.” That was last Tuesday. He was still frisky on the weekend, and smiled at me the next Saturday. 12 days he lived on poison and no water. But he finally kicked the bucket. Hallelujah.
I’m reasonably sure we’ll see more, after all this is rural Montana, but I hope, beyond words, that I don’t meet all 73.
