Of Mice and Men

The other night, I was watching a movie when out of the corner of my eye I saw a small, dark furry thing scurry by along the wall. We had a mouse. Another mouse actually. Earlier, Gracie the good dog had managed to catch and kill one in the back yard. But this little bugger was in our living room.

Kelly set a trap and we waited.

The next night I was sleeping when I heard the excited voices of the boys and Kelly. I figured it was morning and they were getting ready for school. But man was it dark. I wondered if maybe it was raining outside. But I couldn't hear any rain. Then I looked at the clock. It wasn't even 5:00 a.m. yet.

In my half-stupor I bellowed, "What the hell is going on?" And the boys ran into our room announcing that we had caught a mouse. Gus had actually discovered it when he was wandering out of his room for some unknown reason.

Here's the thing: since we're vegetarians for ethical reasons, we can't really be in favor of using traps that crush the little rodents' spinal cords now can we? We use humane traps, which means we literally had caught a mouse - freaking out in the little trap.

The problem with these humane traps is that you have to release the mouse. Kelly decided he'd walk it up to Lindsey Gardens Park, but when he went to transfer the mouse from the trap into a box, there was a bit of commotion, Kelly screamed like a girl, and the mouse tore off down the road. Or as Niko says, "Little baby rat took off like rocket!"

Over the next week we captured and released another 7 mice! It may have been 8, but the second captive may have been Rocket returned. Since there was no "evidence" of them anywhere in the house, we figure they must be coming from our creepy cellar. So during the day, the trap went down there.

We're trying to use this whole experience as an opportunity to teach the boys about respect for all life, about the ability to be kind to all animals - not just the cute ones you can pet. But I can't help but believe that one day as adults, when the conversation in a dorm room turns to the insanity of parents, these stories will take off out of their mouths like, well, like a rocket!

I can hear it now: "OK, I can beat that! My dads are all 'be kind to animals' and once we had a sh-t load of mice, but we couldn't kill em. We'd catch them and release them in the park up the street!"

Hey boys, you're being raised by a Greek guy, it's OK to embellish a little. Tell your future buddies that we put little radio transmitters around their necks before relocating them back to the game reserve just like on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom!