I swear I’m not totally stupid. Really. So please, keep that in mind, as I tell you what happened this weekend.
Saturday morning, I was doing a little cleaning in my apartment, when I glanced over to the kitchen, and saw a mouse run from the garbage, across the kitchen, and under the dishwasher. Now, I’m not really scared of mice the same way I am of bugs (yes, I’m a big strong man, I am), but the initial skittering, and the shock of seeing a mouse in the apartment made me kind of freak out.
This freak out took the form of opening my front door, and standing to the side of the front door in the hallway, under the assumption that the mouse was just waiting for me to open the door to the apartment for it, so it could leave. After the intial shock wore off, I realized this was stupid, and it was just a mouse, and I should calm down.
I should also do something to take care of it, so I headed for the hardware store, and picked up their last Havaheart Trap. For those of you not aware (though I can’t imagine there are many of you who aren’t), Havaheart Traps safely trap animals, without, you know, breaking their legs, or sticking them in glue. They’re just as acceptable for catching mice, as they are for raccoons, and larger animals, so why not pick one up? This is, by the way, my tangential excuse for posting this story on Modern Materialist.
[$12, Amazon]
So, after picking up the Havaheart, I headed home, and proceeded to set it up. The trap is pretty intuitive, and for the most part, set up for you. They suggest for mice, the best thing to attract them is peanut butter, which seemed difficult to apply, but I was game. I grabbed a knife, and my jar of Peanut Butter & Co. Smooth Operater, and slathered that trap with the finest PB you can buy.
[$5, Peanut Butter and Co.]
Then, I proceeded to place the trap on my kitchen floor, and wait. And wait. As I worked on my computer, every noise I heard seemed to indicate the trap was about to be sprung, but nothing. I even turned off all the lights, and left the house for an hour, but no mouse appeared.
Finally, on Monday night, I was, once again, just walking by the kitchen, when I spied something on the floor… And it wasn’t a mouse, it was a big fat roach, on it’s back. Which, remember, I hate bugs, and can’t even stand to look at them. Regardless, I grabbed my can of RAID, and sprayed that mofo until he was dead. From, you know, ten feet away. Because that’s how I roll.
That’s when it occurred to me… I hadn’t necessarily seen a mouse. I had turned my head at the right moment to see something large skittering across the floor of the kitchen, but it had just looked like a dark shadow. There had probably never, in fact, been a mouse at all.
So what I had done was:
- Bought a Havaheart trap.
- Lovingly slathered it with premium peanut butter.
- Left it out for days, on the floor of my kitchen.
For a cockroach.
Remember at the beginning of this post when I swore to you I’m not actually stupid? Yeah, so try to remember that.
