Mouse War

I have a mouse that vis­its under my kitchen sink. Nor­mally I load a few traps and “Whammo!” — dead mouse, how­ever I have become a bit soft hearted these days. I don’t want to kill him; I just want him to go back to my neighbor’s house. So far, I have tried sev­eral things. I came up with the bril­liant idea of scat­ter­ing chili pow­der under the sink. It worked for chas­ing ants out of the cup­boards; it should work on the mouse too.

Mice appar­ently like chili pow­der (at least this one does). Over a period of sev­eral nights, he ate all of it. I have not seen him, but I am con­vinced that he is wear­ing a som­brero and pack­ing a cou­ple of pis­tols. I don’t want to meet up with him. He is tougher than I am. He has won this round. I am out a jar of chili pow­der and the mouse is at least a cou­ple of ounces heav­ier (it is not size but tough­ness that counts).

Like a wimp, I moved the trash can to the garage and then scrubbed and bleached under the sink. I am bet­ting that the smell of bleach will dis­cour­age him. I have not heard him under there lately. He will give up sooner or later. Just in case, I have stopped keep­ing food in the house. I fig­ure I can starve him out and lose weight at the same time. There is a deter­mi­na­tion in my soul. It does not mat­ter how hun­gry I get, the mouse is not eat­ing at my place anymore!

Starv­ing myself to prove a point to this mouse may not be the smartest thing I have ever done. I am a bit hypo­glycemic. I can only imag­ine the head­lines: “Man Found In Hypo­glycemic Stu­por With Mouse Danc­ing On His Chest” — “Former Minister’s Fight With Mouse Backfires”…etc. Maybe I should make him a pet. Then again, I may let nature take its course. He may head back to the neighbor’s house even­tu­ally, and we know there is a mouse-eating snake in the green­ery along the prop­erty line. The snake is about to get a spicy sur­prise. Revenge for the snake’s Gar­den of Eden tricks!