The Plague And Peanut Butter

    We have an abandoned house on our street. It has sat empty for years. Recently a local real estate agent bought the house in the hopes of flipping it ( which should be fairly easy since she paid $32,000, which although it is an old historic neighborhood, most homes go for a minimum of about $170,00 ) and hired a contractor to get it in sell-able condition.  So as these guys banged away at this old house, I came to the conclusion it was far from abandoned.
     It started at night, I would sneak out back for a quick smoke after dinner, and I started noticing rustling sounds in the flower beds around the house. Sometimes I would see something dart across the grass at the edges of my vision. Thinking maybe it was some errant bird I went about my business not giving it a second thought.
     A couple of days later I was sitting out back reading, well pretending to read but in all actuality I was napping, when I was awakened from my "reading" by a scream coming from inside the house. Actually it more like five screams that all rolled into one long one. I came running into the kitchen to see my wife literally standing on the kitchen counter while frantically pointing at the floor ( the fact that this was right out of an old Tom and Jerry cartoon wasn't lost on me, which I mistakenly pointed out to my wife ). Yes, I had mice.
     So like most people these days when confronted with a rodent problem, I immediately Googled it and was horrified with the results. These little grey invaders were known to carry Hantavirus, which has just very recently killed like 12 people.  Lymphocytic Chorio-meningitis and Hemorrhagic Fever, I wasn't sure what these were exactly but they sounded pretty freaking heinous, and last but not least PLAGUE. That's right the black death was right here in my house. Now normally I am a pretty laid back guy, but now that the plague was threatening my family, the time for laid backness was over and the time for killing had begun.
     I decided to take the old school approach to my problem ( no I didn't get a cat, I have never had a good cat and I have sworn not to get another one ), I went to the hardware store and picked up 4 snap traps. Once home I coated those bad boys in peanut butter and placed them in what I considered mousey hang outs.
     The next day eagerly anticipating some kind of mouse apocalypse, I proceeded to check my well placed traps. I found all four of them had been set off, licked clean of peanut butter, and entirely mouse free. In fact one mouse actually took a crap on one of the traps. That's right instead of first blood I was mocked by rodents. OK, not a problem, I just needed to tweak my game plan. So I thought if I was a plague infected rodent what would tempt me. Well peanut butter obviously, and maybe something sweet, but what would really tempt me out of my hidey hole. Of course, something stinky and I had just the thing, gas station sausage sticks. So reset my traps, with their new bait ( 1 tsp. of peanut butter, a dash of sugar sprinkled over P.B. and of course a piece of sausage jammed in the middle ) and once again waited.
     SNAP! I ran to the back of the kitchen and there it was my first victim. The little grey bastard still had a bit of sausage in his mouth. Now I know it's weird being proud of catching a mouse but damn it I don't care, I was proud. I would have bronzed that little grey bastard if I would have been allowed to ( I showed it to my wife and asked about bronzing it, she answered with profanity ). I settled with dropping it in the flower bed as a warning to all other mice. Kind of like a tiny scarecrow. SNAP! SNAP! I came to love that sound. With every snap of a trap going off I knew the was one less chance of my family getting quarantined like some kind of bad sci fi movie. I mean isn't that how all zombie movies start, some infected rodent bites someone. I may have just saved the world with my mouse catching skills.   Your Welcome.
     By the end of my little war I had killed 10 mice. They quickly realized the error they had made by choosing to come into my house. The snapping of the traps has stopped. The plague is gone from my house.  It has been two weeks and no sign of my disease spreading enemy, I have declared victory.