Friday, January 13, 2012

January 13: Friday the 13th, Rodents, Phobia

He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him.  A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone.  What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.

Imagine this rat moon walking
Of course, this passage from A Christmas Carol describes Scrooge's death.  It's a terrible scene, terrifying and grotesque.  The detail that bothers me the most is the gnawing of the rats.  One of my phobias, in fact my greatest phobia, is rodents.  They instill in me cold fear.  I believe this phobia stems from a childhood viewing of the movie Ben.  (If you've never seen the film, don't.  It's traumatizing, although Michael Jackson did compose a great theme song for it.)

Today is Friday the 13th, and it has lived up to its reputation.  I spent last night cleaning and disinfecting my kitchen counter because my wife saw a mouse on it.  After we were done cleaning, I set up glue traps along the path of rodent migration.  I was determined to catch the little bastard.

When my son called for a bottle of milk at 2 a.m., I went into the kitchen and saw the invader splayed on one of the glue traps.  "Serves you right, you little fucker," I thought to myself.  (Yes, I just used the word "fucker."  That's how much I hate rodents.)  Then, the mouse started scratching and scrabbling frantically.  I nearly soiled myself.

I couldn't deal with it.  The glue pad is supposed to have poison in it.  I left the mouse to succumb to the devices of the trap.

However, it didn't die.  My wife told me it was still alive when my kids found it.  My daughter and son made friends with it.  My daughter fed it, for God's sake.  I told my wife to scoop it into a garbage bag, take it outside, and smash it with the snow shovel.

I'm happy to report that the mouse is no longer with us.  My daughter is moping in her closet.  My son is crying; he wants to go outside and say "bye-bye" to the mouse.  I'm planning on buying eight more glue traps to set up tonight.  I want to make sure Ben's family members haven't taken up residence in my kitchen, as well.  If they have, I'm ready to perpetrate a rodent apocalypse.

Saint Marty is not Saint Francis of Assisi.  He doesn't love all of God's creatures.

5 comments:

  1. What a cruel thing to do! Glue traps don't have poison in them at all, they just sit there and suffer.

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  2. It's a shame you don't have the same amount of compassion as your children. Here's a little animal whose only crime was trying to survive, and you use glue traps, of all things, to get rid of it. That and you act like a school girl - nearly soiled yourself over a helpless and frightened animal that's smaller than your fist? That's pathetic - are you sure you're a man?

    And you act like what your daughter did is incomprehensible. No, it's called having a heart. I'm not sure God approves of you dealing with the little creature in such an inhumane manner, do a little bit of Googling on glue traps and you'll see how terrible they are.

    Thank goodness your kids aren't as vile and as mean spirited as you!

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  3. I'm astounded by the comment by Rodney. I mean, come on! That was a funny story. It wasn't meant to offend any person's love of vermin. In all fairness, Marty thought there was poison on the trap to dispatch the pest quietly. Mouse droppings can contain hantavirus or salmonella--not something I want around a house with my children (or any house for that matter). As clean as anyone can keep a home, there is always the possibility of mice, and where there's one, there is usually more. While I am an animal lover and pet owner, I, too, would rid my house of mice....one way or another. Thanks for the amusing post, St. Marty. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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  4. This is not about the love of vermin, this is about not being unnecessarily cruel to animals you have to dispatch. I have no love for vermin but I wouldn't ever torture them. While I understand that sometimes you may have to get rid of mice, that is not the point. One could have used snap traps, or live traps... or something called the ratzapper. These are all far more painless and don't make much of a mess.

    A glue trapped animal will fill the trap with its excretion in no time, because fright generally does that. The CDC do not recommend glue traps as they are a health hazard based on that very fact. Glue trap packages clearly state "non-toxic" on them. I don't find this at all funny because an animal suffered unnecessarily here, how that supposed to be funny? As well the graphical description of hitting a mouse with a shovel. Since when was mercy killing a helpless animal funny?

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