Unpleasant Realities

As soon as the weather turned cold, our garage was invaded by mice. Mikey went and bought a set of four mousetraps, which were duly baited with Velveeta and set out at strategic points around the garage.

Mikey disposed of the first two victims by winding an entire roll of paper towels around each hand, then carefully picking up the mousetrap and dropping the whole thing -- mouse and trap -- into the trash. The next two mice were caught while he was at work the next day. I released their tiny corpses into the trash can, then rebaited the traps and set them out again. And promptly caught two more mice, which I disposed of in the same manner.

When Mikey came home from work, I reported our tally of six dead mice so far. Smart guy that he is, he quickly worked out the math: 4 traps + 6 dead mice = he wasn't eating any food prepared by my contaminated hands, so I got out of cooking dinner that night. Wheee!

Anyway, the two remaining traps sat in the garage, rebaited but untripped, for the past three or four weeks -- until two days ago.

Now, Britt is not allowed in the garage because it defeats the whole purpose of smoking out there, which is to keep the smoke away from her, and also because it's a few minutes of blessed peace. But, once she learned how to open the door, she kept trying to come and hang out with us in the smoke hole -- until Mikey convinced her there were snakes in the garage. Since then her garage visiting has been limited to popping her head out the door and attempting to carry on conversations until she gets yelled at to shut the door.

And so, two days ago, she popped her head out and spotted a dead mouse in the trap by the door. In her little world, mice are cute cartoon creatures named Jerry and Mickey, and she obviously had trouble reconciling what she saw since she's been chattering about it nonstop ever since. "He has a tail. Did you see his tail?" "The trap got him? Did it get him?" "He died dead! The trap killed him?" "He ate the cheese and the trap went like this!" (making trap-snapping motion with her hands).

Last night I was fixin' to fry up some steaks for dinner when Britt came ambling over. Seeing the steaks, she yelled, "Eeeew! Fish! I don't like fish!" I explained to her that it wasn't fish, it was beef, and she asked "What's beef?" So I said, "It comes from a cow." And immediately kicked myself, because I wasn't ready to go there. "A cow?" she said doubtfully. She stood there thinking and then said, "A cow is made of those?" "Uhhhhmmmm...." said I, because cows are still cute cartoon creatures in her little world. Finally, she figured out the answer. "His body musta broke." And then she wandered off and left me trying to stifle a fit of laughter.

Anyway, the mouse is still out there in the trap. (Perhaps this is why Britt keeps talking about it? Ya think?) I must've caught the contamination oogies from Mikey because we're outwaiting each other to see who will give in first and throw it out. Mercifully, it's been cold out so it hasn't started to stink yet. But I ain't touching the damned thing.