the evolution of catching a mouse

the mouse living in our house is no ordinary rodent. it is the smartest, most vile mouse that has ever haunted the lonely places no other living creature goes in a house. this mouse has unparalleled patience, and will lie in wait for hours until you go to sleep. it won't eat anything in your house, or leave any nibble marks, but it will scurry across the floor when you're reading a book and leave you wishing that night wasn't so dark.

when i first became aware of the mouse, i thought that as a newly independent woman and homeowner, i could do things right in my house. a mouse deserves the right to live, and it's not the mouse's fault we create these boxes full of comfort and delicious crumbs. 

but how quickly your mind changes about the rights of mice when you realize that you have been outwitted by a rodent. and you keep finding little pellets of poop everywhere. that's when you forsake the vows you took to love and cherish all of god's creatures. 

first we tried the PETA way, building a contraption similar to the one below. the idea is that the mouse can get in, but it can't get out, and then you can release the mouse outside. we put little goodies in the bottom, such as crackers and dried fruit, to allure the mouse in. it didn't work. 

i should have known the PETA folks were quacks when they said:

Release them within 100 yards of where they were trapped...Releasing a mouse or rat into a strange area will almost surely result in the animal's death because relocated animals don't know where to find adequate food, water, or shelter and often become weak and succumb to predation or foreign parasites or disease against which they lack a natural immunity." 

that seems a little dire. do they think people will be so scared of the mouse that they will drive as deep as they can into the middle of nowhere to release it? anyhow, if i followed that rule, i would probably end up releasing it back into my own house. 

so the next step was the glue trap, which some people from PETA have so kindly reminded me is inhumane:

this guy apparently thinks it's inhumane too:

but even with the glue traps, we still got nothing. this mouse is clearly at the height of its species' evolutionary history. so now we have some snap traps:

as of yet, even these evil claw tooth traps haven't worked. 

my next step is 

valar morghulis. everything must die.  i saw the mouse come into our living room, so i set up a barricade of evil so it can't possibly get away.

the only thing stopping me from stalking around the house with a hatchet is that i don't want to make dents in the hardwood floors. how swiftly evil prevails.