Friday, February 11, 2011

No More Mr. Mice Guy



Last week, I was at work. MY WIFE was home, watching TV in the living room. She saw him scooting around the radiator near the front window. She gave me a phone call.

"Ratatooie is back," she said.





[This is somebody else's mouse. Ratatooie is extremely camera shy.]


We had had a mouse in the house before, a few years back. We never saw him, nor did we hear him. He was the quietest most polite mouse in the history of micedom. We only knew he was around because we occasionally saw chewed up bits of paper in one of the kitchen drawers. We also saw little teeny-tiny mouse poops near the stove. If it wasn't for that poop, I wouldn't have cared one way or the other. If he was so quiet that we never heard him, and so secretive that we never saw him, I was willing to let bygones be bygones and let him have as much scrap paper as he wanted. You can't have a house guest pooping in your kitchen, though, so I bought a "catch-and-release" trap.

MY WIFE, not as much of a sentimental dope as I, averred that she was in favor of buying the kind that splatters a mouse's brains all over the linoleum. I was tempted to tell her that it was her fault we had mice. If she wasn't allergic to animal dander, we'd have a cat. I decided it really wasn't fair to lay blame at the feet of someone who couldn't help being wheezy, though, so I compromised - in my head - and, since I do the grocery shopping, a humane trap was bought on my next trip. I set the trap, following the instructions. I caught no mice.

We did, however, stop seeing any signs of a mouse being around. I suggested that perhaps this was a particularly intelligent mouse, and when I set the trap he decided that we were too smart for him and he left. MY WIFE rolled her eyes (which she'll do more of later in this story, I assure you.)

A couple of days later, I discovered what had happened to that mouse. At least, I assume it was the same mouse; we hadn't been formally introduced. I went outside to tend to some plants, and there he was, a stiff little mouse corpse near our cellar stairs. I have no idea how he came to meet his maker, but he certainly had and it made my life easier. I no longer had to consider buying a trap that would kill him, since he was already stone cold dead. Back to our life as normal, without mice!

But then, four weeks ago, we were in the living room together and we heard a noise from the kitchen, some small item or another tipping over on our counter. I went to investigate. I flipped on the light switch and caught an extremely fleeting glimpse of Ratatooie scurrying behind our cookie jar. I moved closer, but he had completely disappeared, down some hole I couldn't locate for the life of me.

(I don't know which one of us first took to calling him Ratatooie, but that personalization wouldn't help matters later. You'll see.)

I retrieved the previously-unsuccessful humane trap from where it had been living in a drawer full of other useless items like old keys from two houses ago and 7/23 hex bolts that fit Eastern European appliances we threw out in 1995. Since it was still somewhat close to Christmas - and since so many of you kind souls had sent me a fruitcake or two - I baited the trap with a little piece of fruitcake rather than the peanut butter I had tried during the former failed mouse hunt. I figured if I liked fruitcake so much, Ratatooie would, too.

As it turned out, I was right. Fruitcake is an excellent bait. This time I caught a mouse. I found this out when I got up in the middle of the night to have a snack - some fruitcake, as a matter of fact - and I saw the trap had been triggered. I grabbed a small cardboard box that was nearby and released Ratatooie into it, being careful to close off any avenue of escape as soon as he was inside.

Now the question was what to do with him.

I had never thought of what would happen AFTER I caught a live mouse. At least, I hadn't considered what to do with one in the winter when there was about three feet of snow on the ground everywhere in our neighborhood. I had purchased the trap during a summer when it was easy to imagine releasing a mouse in some flowery field, where he would see the abundant food supplied by blooming trees full of succulent fruits and hearty nuts, maybe some shapely lady mice nearby giving him a come hither look, and then he would gaze up at me with big brown eyes full of gratitude for not crushing his head, give me the mousy equivalent of a tip of his hat, and saunter off to live his suddenly wonderful life. Instead, I was faced with the prospect of tossing a cute little furry animal into a snowbank to die.

I know, I know. Some of you are like MY WIFE. You see nothing outstandingly cute about vermin. You've got to understand, though, that I was raised on cartoons wherein the mouse was always the hero. Mighty Mouse was on his way to save the day. Speedy Gonzalez rescued entire Mexican towns from evil cats. Pixie and Dixie were always getting the best of Mister Jinx, and... well, hell, as much I really like Tom, I didn't want to croak Jerry.

With all of the vicious snowstorms we had been having, we and our upstairs neighbors had decided to park in the driveway rather than utilize our garage. We did this because it was easier to drive the cars into the street and clean them of new snow rather than shovel the entire length of our sixty foot drive. The garage door was closed, whereas we usually kept it open. So, after giving about three seconds of thought to keeping Ratatooie as a pet until springtime arrived, I decided to do the best by him that I saw as possible at the moment. Holding the box in one hand, I grabbed a Nilla Wafer from our cookie jar with my other hand, carried both out the back door, walked to the garage, opened it, and went inside. I put Ratatooie's box down in the far corner of the garage, slipped the Nilla Wafer into the box for him as a going away present, then shut the garage door behind me and went back into the house. It was cold in the garage, but not windy, and it wasn't full of snow like the rest of the world. My hope was that he'd find a warmish spot to huddle in until a thaw happened. At the least, he'd enjoy the cookie before freezing to death. And I figured that was that.

In the morning, I told MY WIFE that I had caught Ratatooie. She asked me what I did with him. I told her. Remember that eye-rolling thing I told you about earlier? She did it again. And she said, "So, let me get this straight. You put the mouse in our garage and fed him a cookie? Great. Now he'll tell all of his mouse friends that there's a lunatic in the neighborhood who gives cookies to rats."

I became indignant.

"He's not a rat. He's just a tiny little mouse with big brown eyes. Besides, I figure if I give him a cookie in the garage, then he'll get the idea that's where the food is and he won't come back in here."

Her eyes rolled even harder than the first time. I had the upper hand, though, because I, the mighty white hunter, had caught the mouse. Whatever else she thought, our house was now mouse-free.

Until last week, that is, when Ratatooie returned.

(Of course, I'm not 100% sure if this next mouse was Ratatooie. It might have been Ratatooie's brother, or, God forbid, Mrs. Ratatooie.)

So, as I said at the beginning, MY WIFE called me at work. She asked me where the humane trap was. I told her, and she set it.

When I got home, we watched a bit of the Celtics game together. Then MY WIFE went to bed. I stayed up to watch the end of the game. In the fourth quarter, just after Ray Allen hit a three-pointer to give the C's a lead, I heard the trap snap shut. I went over to where it was, by the radiator, and lifted it up. I could tell by the weight that we had caught something, and I assumed it was a mouse. Once again, I had to figure out what to do with him.

Oh, hell, you know what I did with him. I put him in a box, gave him a cookie, and took him out to the garage. After closing the garage door, I went back inside and re-set the trap, just in case there was more than one Ratatooie.

The next morning, there was. I took this one out to the garage, too, with the requisite cookie in hand, and dumped him in the same box that was already there and empty. I threw his cookie in with him and went back inside the house. I don't know; maybe there's only one mouse, and he has getting back into the house down pat and I've trained him to expect a cookie every time he does. Damned if I can tell. The next time I catch one, I'm going to draw a big X on his back in magic marker so I can see if I'm catching the same freakin' mouse over and over.

So far this week, I have not caught another mouse. Fair warning to Ratatooie if he reads this, though: You can only push me so far. I ate the last of the Nilla Wafers myself a couple of days ago, so no more cookies for you, pal!

Soon, with more better stuff.


71 comments:

Anonymous said...

*holds sign*

Croak Jerry! Croak Jerry!

Sorry, but I am an anti-rodent proponent.

And they make me scream a lot.

I'm all about being kinder and gentler, but not when it comes to illegal immigration and mice.

HA!

Anonymous said...

You are such a pushover. How absolutely eye-rollingly cute! You give them cookies and put them in the garage - the mind boggles.

We get mice at the cottage and their brains get splattered. Except once when Mr. Jazz went to empty a trap and said "there's a mouse!" at which point I answered, "well, get rid of it" his answer: "it's alive!", mine, "then kill it", his "I can't it's alive!" - at which point much eye rolling on my part ensued and I put on a pair of garden gloves and wrung its neck, and told Mr. Jazz - "never forget I have no qualms wringing mammals' necks."

Next time I'll just give him a cookie so he can feed the damn mouse

- Jazz

Lori said...

LOL I am all for killing rodents. I'm not sure if growing up on the farm hardened my heart but am heartless when it comes to ratatooie...yes in the movies they look kind of cute but I do not want to share my home with them...sorry Ratatooie no sympathy from me. :)

Shrinky said...

Oh Jim, I love that big old soppy heart of yours, and so does your WIFE, even if you must drive her to distraction at times. Hell, the mouse OBVIOUSLY loves you too..

I'd kinda' come to an uneasy truce with our resident rodent (long and far less amusing story than yours, but yeah, he kept on coming back too), that is until I forgot to cover over the youngest's birthday cake before bed. Being nobody's fool, Sweet Sam of the Sweet Tooth rose early and helped himself to a huge slice. It wasn't until he'd polished off the entire portion, I found all these mice tunnels running through the darn thing. Ugh.

Anonymous said...

Well, obviously from my blogger name, I have an affinity for rodents. I think mice are cute, and they have brown eyes just like me.

I hope you don't have both Mr. and Mrs. Ratatooie, because those cookies are probably giving them a sugar buzz and they will start breeding like...ummm...mice.

Craig said...

(*sigh*)

Jen and I are members of the school of "DEATH TO YOU AND ALL YOUR CHILDREN!" when it comes to small rodents sharing living quarters with us.

I think it goes back to the time when I complimented Jen on the very nice garlic-and-black-pepper pasta dish she served once. "Black pepper?" she asked. "There's no black pepper in it. . ."

Yeah, when it comes to eating rodent-shit, I'm not so mellow. . .

One time, we were sitting in the living room watching TV, when a mouse ran headlong across the room, in plain view of Jen and me, and God and whoever else. When he got to the curtains, he scurried up them with his little mousy claws, until he had marooned himself 7 feet off the floor. I just looked at him for a second, marveling that he was so selflessly volunteering to die for the sins of his aunts and uncles and cousins. Then I took a pair of my old shoes, and clapped him between the heels, rendering him an ex-mouse.

But hey, uh. . . I, uh, hope that story didn't upset you. . .

Matt Conlon said...

I'm glad you didn't argue the allergy point, cause if you had, and won, and gotten a cat, the whole "I prefer humane traps" angle would have been hard to swallow... After all, the cat's whole purpose would be to act as a non-humane trap.

I believe you could always bring him to a pet store.

Hilary said...

You are a gem, Suldog. Thank you for looking after that wee critter. If you want him to stay in your garage, get some bird seed and leave some of it sprinkled nearby. He'll love that. Come spring, start trailing it outdoors and cut off the indoor supply.

I quite like mice. I've had two which I've removed with humane traps but it was in spring or summer. And two which I actually picked up with my hands and placed outside in winter, after my cats were unpleasant to them. I don't know if they survived but it isn't like mice don't go outside at all in winter. I've seen several chow down on the spillage from the bird feeder all winter long.

Anyway, you have a huge, tender heart. Thanks for that. :)

Michelle H. said...

I grew up with mice in the house, I had no problem with letting the cats in to do "their dastardly Tom deed." While my parents had my cat at their place (this was at a time when they didn't have anymore cats) and my cat caught one, I'd toss it into the bushes (the mouse, I mean-not my cat). So I'm on the fence for this one.

I assure you... it's the same mouse. You've trained it to go for the trap knowing that not only will it get fruitcake for supper, but also a Nila wafer for dessert. Even worse, if there are other mice, it would have delivered the goodies back to the nest with a GPS map on how to get more grub. You might just get an endless supply of mice going for that trap.

I suggest buying name tags...

Suldog said...

Quirky - Here's my promise to you: If I see any mice that swam the Rio Grande to get to my house in Massachusetts, I'll kill them.

Jazz - Remind me never to piss you off.

Lori - I assume that growing up on a farm hardens one's heart in many ways, and I appreciate that. If not for those hardened hearts, I wouldn't have bacon, steak, eggs, and so forth. But, I've killed exactly one meal in my life - a lobster, and I felt truly guilty eating him. So, what can I say? I'm a softie when it comes to such things.

On the other hand...

Shrinky - If some rat had tunneled through my fruitcake (rather than just eating a piece I offered him) I'd have hunted him down with a fucking flamethrower.

Red Hamster - I wouldn't kill any hamsters, either. See, that's what I don't quite understand. Folks will keep certain rodents as pets, but destroy others. OK, there's the filth and disease thing, but why quibble over trifles?

Craig - No, I understand the need to sometimes lessen a population. It's just that I'm not the guy to do it. But, man - smashed between the two heels? Didn't that result in some hideous stains on the curtains or walls? Yuck.

Matt - See, here's the thing: A cat's purpose in life, if it has one, is to hunt and kill. So, that being the natural thing for a cat to do, I don't have any great qualms about letting the cat do the dirty work for me. Anyway, the interesting thing I've found is that just having a cat around is sometimes enough to keep mice away. The scent of a cat seems to scare away all but the most desperate. I've borrowed cats from friends specifically to scare away mice, and it's worked. After a week or so, no mouse corpses around, but also no mice.

Suldog said...

Michelle - See above for cat comments. And I hope (and pray) you're wrong about the mouse (mice) bringing a treat back to a nest. If so, and bunches of them show up, there will definitely have to be bloodshed sooner or later :-(

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

Your mention of cartoon mice brought to mind my stepdad doing his improv of Elmer Fudd... not that it was intentional... whenever a mouse appeared in our house. About the only thing missing from the picture is a shotgun.

Karen said...

What a softie you are! This is hilarious - one of my favorites!

Bill Yates said...

Jim, reading your blog has made a challenging day better already. Maybe you could create a new product: Suldog's Mouse Cookies. Walmart's corporate headquarters are just a few towns away from me...I could speak to them if you'd like...

Craig said...

Evidently, my mouse's fatal injuries were all internal ones (you know, getting all of one's bones broken, and assorted ruptured internal organs, don't necessarily lead to carpet stains, and suchlike. . .)

Apryl said...

My mom had one that would crawl up through her stove, and then steal the dog's food. He was a brazen little thing. We called him Stuart Little. He woul djust stare at us like "what?" and go about stealing his dog food.

Apryl said...

My mom had one that would crawl up through her stove, and then steal the dog's food. He was a brazen little thing. We called him Stuart Little. He woul djust stare at us like "what?" and go about stealing his dog food.

Pat - Arkansas said...

Oh, glory! Love it! You old softie, you!

Bruce Coltin said...

You can forget about the famous Cat Solution. My cat, Lucy, does nothing around here. She is THE PET. She made it clear, long ago, that the mice are my problem.

Buck said...

You'd make a FINE Buddhist, Jim, should ever decide to change your theological orientation.

That said... and even though I AM a Buddhist by an official act of the United States gub'mint (my USAF dogtags say "Buddhist," which is a story too long to go into here)... I take NO prisoners where vermin are concerned. I side with YOUR WIFE in this matter; death is swift, sure, and relatively painless for mousie intruders.

Matt Conlon said...

No moar, mistar clee hee hee HEEN!

Thanks Jim... that song is stuck in my head like a stone in a kidney.

France Rants said...

I take it you never read the child's book, IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE, by Laura Numeroff?

tsk,tsk..

Jeni said...

Just the picture in my mind's eye of a grown man, carrying a box with a live mouse in it, giving said mouse a 'Nila wafer and then, parking the box with the mouse in the garage -kind of like giving the mouse its own garage-home there, had me cracking up laughing! I'm pretty much with your wife on the mouse in the house thing!

Sarah said...

I, also, was going to ask about "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." Perhaps you should've asked for that instead of fruitcake....
Here's hoping you have celiac mice who will be disabled by the gluten in the Nilla wafers and leave YOUR WIFE alone.

IT (aka Ivan Toblog) said...

Here's where you will see the potential consequences.

Jackie said...

I thought I had read my favorite post of yours...until this one.
It reminds me somewhat of the poinsettia post...and knowing what a soft heart you have, I smiled....and laughed at the eye-rolling from YOUR WIFE....and think that marking Ratatooie is an excellent idea. I'm hoping that you will take a photo...and let me know whether Rata is enjoying dessert in your garage. What a great story. I love this!!!

Eleonora Baldwin said...

Please forgive me Jim, but I can't read any further than, "scooting around the radiator"
While barely controlling my gag reflex, I say ciao for now.

Sorry,
Lola xx

Matt Conlon said...

This post reminds me of the ant in the dishwasher post... You should add that one to your re-post queue.

3GKnight said...

Hahaha! I think one of my blog commenters suggested I live catch my mice and release them a couple miles away. I've caught 9 mice in snap-traps since that suggestion, which was made 2 months ago. I don't have that kind of gas money to release them back into the wild. The 'wild' being someone else's kitchen...eventually.

messymimi said...

Can't say i blame you for the humane trap, that's what i would do if i didn't have 5 cats and foster kittens.

Chris said...

I had my own mouse problem a while back and I also tried a humane trap. Looked like a white plastic box with a trap door. Anyway, it didn't work. At all.

So I then purchased a couple glue traps. Went to Vegas for the weekend, and when we returned, it looked like a scene from that movie where the soccer team got stranded in the Andes. Six mice. Some stuck together on the same glue trap. Some had their own. Some had tried to help their buddies escape by chewing the stuck leg off.

Carnage.

I swept them all into a giant trash bag and put 'em in the garbage.

I have no love for rodents.

Land of shimp said...

Well, it's better than using the glue traps, that's for sure. My (formerly) tenderhearted husband first tried those, years ago.

Then he found out that you have to do something with the live, glued mouse. It upset him deeply.

Then he met me and my serial killer cat. But he has had to dispatch something cuter than a mouse...poor baby bunny took a terrible fall and broke his back in our window well.

So I could loan you my husband, my cat, or myself if need be seeing as I have the "Policy Violator" mentality towards all bugs and unwelcome critters. On the other side of the threshold? I'm Gandhiesque in my live-and-let-live.

Cross my threshold as vermin or pest and it is ON.

Seriously, leave him in the humane trap until morning and take it to a field on you way to work. That's what my tenderhearted, ex-neighbor would do.

Which is how we got mice in the first place and my cat earned the nickname "Death From Above."

Kate said...

Good luck freeing your house from these pests!

Mariann Simms said...

We have captured our fair share of animals in the house as we have a cat door. But...we have cats - to bring them in - they don't need any Nilla wafers to do it.

Apparently cats like to bring in things to hunt them on their home turf.

i beati said...

I'll send my mouse possee . They have vicious names like Lovey, Darlin, Pinky and Kissipurr)my cats)

Sueann said...

I too went the humane trap route and caught said mouse one cold snowy night. Got dressed in many layers and went outside with said trap and walked two blocks from my house and released it there in the woods. Plenty of fallen logs to make a nice home. Then I went home and settled in to watch a move. Of course, I reset the trap. Bang! Off it goes again...took trap and said mouse and many layers of clothes and headed outside. Then I spotted the tracks of the mouse coming back from the field where I deposited him and the tracks led back into the house!! Ack! Same damn mouse! This went on as I ventured further and further from the house. I finally bought a real trap and that ended both of our adventures. Ha!
Good luck
Hugs
SueAnn

Angie Ledbetter said...

Not a bit surprised you and the RATS both love fruitcake!

Clare Dunn said...

Unfortunately, you can't see my eyes rolling.

When cartoon mice invade my kitchen, I let them stay.
When the real deal starts roaming thru the cabinets, they get clobbered - maybe not between shoe heels, but they definitely meet their furry maker in some totally non-humane way.

You ARE soft!
:)
xoxoxo, cd

Along These Lines ... said...

As a general rule, if you see one mouse, you've probably got three or four.

If I Were God... said...

There is... a time to every purpose under Heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace...

To wit; a time of war when disease carrying vermin invade, a time of peace (& piece of mind) once they're slain.

Speaking of univited pests about to be slain, you do know they're hunting Cupid down as we speak!

Judi FitzPatrick said...

I'm laughing so hard I can just barely type - you are too funny.

I agree with your plan of garage and cookie in this recent weather - couldn't kill one no matter what.

I sure hope you've gotten all of them out and they don't return.

Peace, Judi

Maggie May said...

I just LOVE this post and cannot wait to tell my son to read it as he is having a similar problem.
You have a kind heart.
Maggie X

Nuts in May

Angela Christensen said...

We always get field mice in the winter and there's a constant quiet battle of wills about how to rid ourselves of them (the Hav-a-Heart trap versus the brain-splatter approach). Always good to know we're not alone in the homefront challenge department....I think I might have to follow Michelle's suggestion and have some name tags made. :)

Crazed Nitwit said...

I'm too lazy to read all the comments so this may have been mentioned...you've obviously never read the children's book "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie............". I think you should read it.

Three Hundred Sixty Five said...

A few summers ago we had a real mousie infestation, and the cute little buggers were eating all my tomatoes (in my pitifully small garden). Solution: rip out plants and put in flowers. Spousal unit set killing traps (which I never touched). I caught a teeny one who was cowering by above mentioned tomatoes and released it to which Spousal unit commented "so you want it to come back!?!) Moral of story: it's always good to have one of you willing to kill, kill, kill!

Undercover Philosopher said...

cute story.....although i did start thinking about a tiny mouse trying to make his way through inches and inches of snow.....with wellys on.......

Carolina said...

I suspect you're a mice-trainer. Or a mouse-trainer. Nothing wrong with that ;-)

lime said...

listen, all you had to do was ask. i would have brought my family up. mouse hunting and bludgeoning is a family activity for us since we live in the woods. normally we spatter their brains with the inhumane traps but when one has the temerity to scamper across the floor in full daylight it makes us rather bloodthirsty. we've cornered them and beaten them with shoes. actually we had the boy beat it with a shoe since he was, at the time, the smallest person and most able to fit into the closet. the rest of us were increasing lines of defense should the first line be breached.

Craig said...

And suddenly, I am getting a huge laugh from the notion that somebody besides me has taken to whacking the little bastards with shoes. . .

Ericka said...

omg - i'm going thru the same thing! my landlord set the gauntlet of death in spring traps behind my oven and hurt one, so i set the rest of them off and put them in a ziplock bag. then i emailed him and said that i was okay with death, better with relocation but not okay with torture. i've been calling the mouses "gus gus" after the little mice in cinderella. he is considerably more bloodthirsty than i. so he's killed 6 so far, and now my chocolate is safer.

Carolina said...

You could perhaps get one of those naked cats if your lovely, blood thirsty wife isn't allergic to them. If the sight of such a cat doesn't scare the mouse away, the cat might even catch it ;-)

Pauline said...

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie...

Kat said...

HAHAHA!!!!! You are hilarious!!!!! I am much like you. Though I don't like mice anywhere near my house, I used to have MICE AS PETS when I was little, so there is no way I could harm one. My husband, however, just found a mouse in our garage the other day and ended the poor little dear's life. :( Meanie.

notactuallygod said...

There is a one-time solution to any rodent problem: GET A BEARMOUSE

He's fierce, he's new, and totally chomping at the bit to get the job done. There's even got a picture of him in action.

http://if-i-were-god-or-had-his-powers.blogspot.com/2010/12/squirreldog-and-other-new-creatures.html

Sam said...

Re Maggie May's comment above - yes, I too have a rodent. I haven't seen it but it leaves little piles of chewed up stuff in the middle of the kitchen. Like you I bought a humane trap and baited it with peanut butter. No luck so far and no sign of it since I bought the trap.
Mice don't worry me and I have no desire to kill it. If however I had a rat I would get no sleep until I had blown the sucker's brains out!

will said...

It's not complicated - peanut butter on a snap trap is darn near foolproof. And, if there's one mouse there's probably 4 or 5 more in your house.

Ruth and Glen said...

EEEK !! Great story Jim! :o)

Anonymous said...

Hilarious! My son will be you in another 30 years. I hope his wife is as forgiving!

Anonymous said...

Can't stop laughing.. Smart mouse. Humans, well, maybe you should start buying a brand of cookie the mouse does not like. Perhaps he would move to the neighbor's house?

DI

Lori said...

Stopping back to say congrats on POTW at Hilarys! Happy hump day!

abb said...

Very deserving POTW. And a great laugh!

George said...

Perhaps I need to try one of those humane traps because the old kind is doing nothing for my rodent population. Thanks for the info, Jim!

Dianne said...

you are a good soul!
thanks for caring for the mouse
we all have our place on the planet

bravo for your POTW

Unknown said...

I can NOT believe you gave that mouse a cookie.

You ARE familiar with the children's book by now, are you not?

Congratulations on your post of the week.

Kill Ratatooie.

Out on the prairie said...

Has your wife ever told you she has 2 out of three points to become a saint?Laughed good at this, but what you didn't find was where it had peed on your plates. I had a farmhouse and the routine each year was to find any hole your finger could fit throgh and plug it.you have a big heart.

ethelmaepotter! said...

You gave him fruitcake.

Well, at least now we know what to do with fruitcake.

Then you put him in the garage.

IN THE GARAGE. IN WINTER.

Think about it (I'm on THE WIFE'S side here,) if you were a mouse and had just been released into a COLD garage and been given a cookie by a kind man who lived in a nice warm house with more fruitcake and cookies, and you looked outside the COLD GARAGE and saw snow that towered a thousand mousefeet over you, where would you go?

THAT'S RIGHT - BACK IN THE HOUSE!

DUH!

I can poke at you because I once pardoned a mouse-in-the-house, too. It waddled - literally because it was so fat, from behind the refrigerator and was so darn cute, I just couldn't do the dirty deed. So I had my Fred scoop it up on some newspaper and release it outside. A couple of days later, we heard teensy tiny squeaks behind the fridge, and guess what we found? A newly svelte mouse with about a dozen babies.

I don't rememebr what happened then.

This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Congrats on POTW!

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Unknown said...

Sorry to revive such an old article (if that is even possible on blogspot, idk, im new), but i really felt the need to comment on this piece, as it holds some significance.
Recently, a family of mice had taken refuge in my home. At first, i thought there was only one mouse. Told my brother and dad about it, who also had heard/seen of said mouse. Long story short, i tried catching it in my room, to no avail. One of my brothers somehow catches it in a chip bag. He threw it out, but it quickly came back in--or so we thought.

It might have came back in, who knows. my dad had set out traps - glue traps, and the classic death machine that clamps down on mice (dont mind my grammar lel). We had caught a couple mice. The one that i discovered in a glue trap really made me realize some things.
1. i can't kill mice.
2. i really am a softy at heart.

I freed it from the trap (with some help of vegetable oil) and decided upon dumping it in my bin. my reason? it's freaking cold outside. where will it go except back into my house, unless i dump it miles away? plus, it was 5am; no way in hell am i driving some miles away to release this mouse (i contemplated it for a while though, hah!). i also figured it could survive off the random bits in the garbage, and hopefully be free to roam in the land fills of america. wishful thinking, maybe.

anywho, this entire mouse fiasco got me thinking. when i caught the mouse, a wave of sympathy rushed over me. it looked so terrified and helpless, staring at me and desperately trying to wiggle itself free in short, infrequent spurts. it's almost as if it was looking at me and asking me for mercy, or saying, "please don't, my family". (its face was slightly stuck in the side of the glue trap, while its body was on the bottom part of the trap). i then googled "is it wrong to kill mice?" "i feel terrible for killing mice" (i didnt kill any mice though)
This post is getting way too long winded. i meant for it to be short, sorry.

alright let me get to the point. after googling those things, i stumbled upon this story. i loved it. wanted to find more tales of Ratatooie. i ended up reading a few articles of yours. i loved them. i love your style of writing. i love the satire you put into your articles.
i wanted to say "You just gained a new follower." but it doesnt look like such a command exists, so i'll settle for bookmarking this page.

thank you for doing what you do, jim suldog,
-New Fan

Suldog said...

Thank you, Isaac. You are not only a nice person, you have great taste :-)

heidilotus said...

I have been trapping and releasing mice for a few months. Now there is snow and I .. don't know what to do. I was hoping to find an outdoor mouse house on ebay or amazon. I actually releasead a mouse back into my kitchen last night since there is now 10" of snow outside. Thank you for a solution. I ordered some Nilla wafers online and got a nice box for my heated garage. This is the best idea I've found online so far. I'm not joking.

Suldog said...

I'm very glad I was of help!