Closet Creature

“I let it go by the Historical Society building.” said my husband, upon returning from his usual morning sojourn into Fryeburg.

The thing he let go was... a mouse. He’s far too kindhearted to actually kill the little rodents when they make a pest of themselves in our home. He has several traps which catch the critters alive, and then he releases them where (he thinks) they will be unlikely to return to their former stomping grounds.

Personally, I favor the good old-fashioned ‘death traps.’ If you’re gonna get rid of a mouse, you might as well GET RID OF A MOUSE, not just make it someone else’s problem. On one occasion I decided to over-rule my husband, and say to hell with his ‘live and let live’ sensibilities. I went out and bought a couple of ‘death traps.’ I couldn’t, however, figure out how to set them, and ended up pinching my finger... after which I turned the ‘mouse detail’ back to hubby.

Which is just as well, because my husband’s kind-hearted efforts often amuse me. For instance, earlier this week a mouse decided to make a racket in a tiny crawl-space just beyond our bedroom closet wall. After an almost sleepless night (for hubby, not for me- I’m a heavy sleeper) he decided that the noisy creature had to go. So he set one of his kind-hearted traps and, in the middle of the next night, caught the critter. He then transferred it to a mouse prison (which originally was a ‘bait bucket’- a plastic pail with holes in the lid) and put it in the garage. In the morning my disappointed hubby explained to me the the Closet Creature was no longer captive, having somehow chewed his way out of prison... I could hardly keep from laughing.

And then there was the time (years ago, but I’ll never let him forget) when he, intent upon transporting a mouse into exile, placed the little trap on top of the car while he otherwise readied himself for the short journey. He then forgot to put the captive critter INTO the car, and took the poor little thing for the ride of its life. Later on he found the broken mouse trap by the side of the road, with no sign of the poor mouse. Which, God help me, I find hilarious.