Well, I’ve been routinely putting peanuts on top the sunflower seed bin, and they disappear usually within the same day, despite no Chip-Chip spotting.
Yesterday was a false alarm. I heard scratching and tumbling, and, thinking it was Chip-Chip rearranging the garage, with any luck, straightening it out, I slowly opened the garage door and discovered some movement in the recycle bin in the back corner. As the vegetable cans rattled and the plastic Coke bottles bounced around, I was hopeful that finally I’d get a chance to say hi to Chip-Chip.
No such luck. The little critter dived under the recyclables. A mouse maybe? I started to remove the plastic pop bottles and glass beer bottles, and tin corn cans until only one half-crushed can remained. The little critter, whatever it was, must have taken refuge inside the can. Gently, I picked up the can, tipping the open end up for the critter’s safety, and then set it down outside along the foundation of the garage. Slowly, a nose poked out. Then whiskers. Then, slowly, a head. Squinty little eyes. It sniffed the air, rather blindly, and cautiously squeezed out of the can. The little mole then began burrowing into the leaves and soon disappeared.
I wonder whether the little critter had realized that I rescued it from slowly and miserably starving to death inside the recycle bin, its sides just too slippery, too high, and too insurmountable for the little critter to scale.
The mole thusly relocated, I went back to the peanut mystery and soon discovered that some line from a fishing line spool had been unrolled and stashed down inside a foundation cinder block behind the sunflower seed bin. I pulled at the line. Stuck. So stuck that it snapped before I could free it. Then, later that afternoon, more line had been taken. What was going on? Could it be that the chipmunk had extended its petty larceny to my fishing equipment? Not likely, I thought. It was more likely the work of mice, evil mice, who were probably plotting some sort of painful ambush for me.
I imagined that they would conspire to attach the line from the cinder block across the garage, under my car, and to a ladder rather flimsily mounted on the opposite wall. Then, when I’d go out into the garage—in low light, I might add—I’d trip and hurt myself on the line, get into the car, back out, yanking the ladder down and smashing it on the hood of the car. Estimated damage: potentially in the thousands. My injuries: probably a contused knee, fractured wrist, and a concussion. If I were lucky.
Mice can be vindictive.
Admittedly, the mice had the motive. I had “evicted with extreme prejudice” several of their kin—22 to date—from the house. Now, I don’t have anything against mice, as long as they stay outside with the moles and the squirrels and the chipmunks and the rabbits, and, well, you get the idea. But they had the audacity to come indoors. Their audacity continued to grow to an intolerable level one night. Here’s what happened. As I was watching Family Guy, two mice scampered into the living room. They promptly, scooped up some of my snacks, sat down on my blanket, and started watching TV. Quickly becoming impatient, one said, “Hey, you got anything better to eat?” And the other one said, “Preferably what you’re eating—Cheetos look good. The chips we stole from your bag last week were a little stale.” Well, what chutzpah! Then the first one said, “Anything better on TV? I don’t like your show.” That was it. Nobody deprives me of Stewie! After that night, my campaign against uninvited mice began in earnest.
At first, I felt a little guilty about bringing the little mice to an unceremonious end. My consolation was that mouse traps seem to be about as effective as the guillotine, which made short work of many miscreants of the human persuasion. Guilt soon evolved, however, into righteous justification, especially after one late night, when several mice were partying inside my bedroom wall, playing loud mouse music (which is very high pitched and generally unpleasant (though occasionally pretty good)), scratching and pounding on the inside of the wall, and, to top it off, using bad language. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Foul-mouthed mice.
Such creatures were undoubtedly capable of sabotaging my daily trips to the garage.
Yesterday was a false alarm. I heard scratching and tumbling, and, thinking it was Chip-Chip rearranging the garage, with any luck, straightening it out, I slowly opened the garage door and discovered some movement in the recycle bin in the back corner. As the vegetable cans rattled and the plastic Coke bottles bounced around, I was hopeful that finally I’d get a chance to say hi to Chip-Chip.
No such luck. The little critter dived under the recyclables. A mouse maybe? I started to remove the plastic pop bottles and glass beer bottles, and tin corn cans until only one half-crushed can remained. The little critter, whatever it was, must have taken refuge inside the can. Gently, I picked up the can, tipping the open end up for the critter’s safety, and then set it down outside along the foundation of the garage. Slowly, a nose poked out. Then whiskers. Then, slowly, a head. Squinty little eyes. It sniffed the air, rather blindly, and cautiously squeezed out of the can. The little mole then began burrowing into the leaves and soon disappeared.
I wonder whether the little critter had realized that I rescued it from slowly and miserably starving to death inside the recycle bin, its sides just too slippery, too high, and too insurmountable for the little critter to scale.
The mole thusly relocated, I went back to the peanut mystery and soon discovered that some line from a fishing line spool had been unrolled and stashed down inside a foundation cinder block behind the sunflower seed bin. I pulled at the line. Stuck. So stuck that it snapped before I could free it. Then, later that afternoon, more line had been taken. What was going on? Could it be that the chipmunk had extended its petty larceny to my fishing equipment? Not likely, I thought. It was more likely the work of mice, evil mice, who were probably plotting some sort of painful ambush for me.
I imagined that they would conspire to attach the line from the cinder block across the garage, under my car, and to a ladder rather flimsily mounted on the opposite wall. Then, when I’d go out into the garage—in low light, I might add—I’d trip and hurt myself on the line, get into the car, back out, yanking the ladder down and smashing it on the hood of the car. Estimated damage: potentially in the thousands. My injuries: probably a contused knee, fractured wrist, and a concussion. If I were lucky.
Mice can be vindictive.
Admittedly, the mice had the motive. I had “evicted with extreme prejudice” several of their kin—22 to date—from the house. Now, I don’t have anything against mice, as long as they stay outside with the moles and the squirrels and the chipmunks and the rabbits, and, well, you get the idea. But they had the audacity to come indoors. Their audacity continued to grow to an intolerable level one night. Here’s what happened. As I was watching Family Guy, two mice scampered into the living room. They promptly, scooped up some of my snacks, sat down on my blanket, and started watching TV. Quickly becoming impatient, one said, “Hey, you got anything better to eat?” And the other one said, “Preferably what you’re eating—Cheetos look good. The chips we stole from your bag last week were a little stale.” Well, what chutzpah! Then the first one said, “Anything better on TV? I don’t like your show.” That was it. Nobody deprives me of Stewie! After that night, my campaign against uninvited mice began in earnest.
At first, I felt a little guilty about bringing the little mice to an unceremonious end. My consolation was that mouse traps seem to be about as effective as the guillotine, which made short work of many miscreants of the human persuasion. Guilt soon evolved, however, into righteous justification, especially after one late night, when several mice were partying inside my bedroom wall, playing loud mouse music (which is very high pitched and generally unpleasant (though occasionally pretty good)), scratching and pounding on the inside of the wall, and, to top it off, using bad language. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Foul-mouthed mice.
Such creatures were undoubtedly capable of sabotaging my daily trips to the garage.
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