Mice

 I'm reposting an oldie and I'm sorry if you read it before. I promise next week I will have all new all the time. But this one has the added bonus of a joke. Tell it to all your friends (if you can find any that haven't heard it) and you'll be the hit of the party.

I am not afraid of insects. I can scoop up a spider and calmly walk outside while everyone else is screaming. I can sweep up a pulsing mound (I said pulsing mound) of termites or ants. But if I see a mouse, I am the first one up a table crying. Yes crying. The fur/scittering/bulging eyes/naked tail combo is too much for me. Once a long time ago I lived in an apartment on top of a pub and we'd get armies of mice in our kitchen. I was not afraid then, mainly because I never saw them, I only saw the "clues" they left behind. I could hear them squeaking at night and tip-toeing around the counter tops, though. When we used the broiler, the whole place would smell like warm toasting mouse turds.

At first I bought "have a heart" traps which were tiny rectangular boxes with an open door, and when the little guy went in for the cheese, the trap would tilt like a see-saw causing the door to gently close behind him.

Yeah.

I went through a half pound of cheese, enough to feed a hundred extended families of mice, before realizing that they had figured the thing out after the first night. And then really what would I have done if he had been trapped in there? I would have put him outside and it would have only been a matter of hours before he navigated his way back through the pub and up through the ceiling, across the floor and back to the kitchen.

By the time we agreed to get the snapping traps, my boyfriend and I were so fed up with the turds and the smell and the midnight squeaking that it didn't feel bad crushing their tiny skulls beneath a metal bar night after night after night.

I was reminded of all this when I saw the above photo and read the joke below. I hope I can be forgiven.

Three mice are sitting at the bar arguing over who is the toughest. The first mouse orders a shot of Scotch, drinks it and says, “I’m so tough I trip mouse traps with my foot then do 20 bench presses with the trap bar and eat the cheese.” The second mouse orders 2 shots of bourbon, drinks them and says, “When I see rat poison I grind up as much as I can carry and mix it in my coffee.” The third mouse says, “I don’t have time for this, I have to go home and bang the cat.”