Mousefight at the not-so-OK corral
Ken's Korner
By Ken Carpenter
Fall is here, my favorite season, but right now I'm being distracted from enjoying it. That's because war is hell, and my wife and I are in the middle of a brutal one.
I call it "The War of the Meeces (I hate'em to pieces)," to steal a line from Jinx, an oldtime cartoon cat. He was right, they are not cute and cuddly, they are simply hateful.
It started when we had the old house next door knocked down and removed. It was undoubtedly the verminous version of the local Mousetel 6 or Rodentday Express. I'm guessing there were enough mousey refugees fleeing it to eat half the cheese in Tillamook, Oregon. To top it off, another old rodential palace down the street was also pulverized, creating another horde of homeless pests.
Suddenly our far from mouseproof abode became a destination resort for the ravenous, toothy denizens of a Mouseville gone bad. War was formally declared on an otherwise innocent Saturday afternoon.
We were kicked back watching a ballgame when I happened to look out the sliding glass door. A mouse was sitting there peering in expectantly.
He seemed to be saying, in his best George Bush voice (the fingernails on my blackboard), "Hey, what kind of restaurant is this? Can't a guy get a chunk of cake around here?"
I couldn't get the door open quick enough to flatfoot him before he pranced away, and I am almost sure he emitted a little mouse snicker as he scurried under the porch. He came back for an encore less than an hour later.
It was his version of a rodent mooning, a spit in my eye, a challenge to human supremacy. It was war!
I left the ballgame and ran to town for a visit to the local arms dealer, otherwise known as the hardware store. My wife stayed behind bravely, for she specializes in the art of the mousetrap. Their pain is her gain, and by the time I got back with my industrial sized bag of chemical weapons, our cocky little Peeping Tom lay bosoms up on the steps, wearing a mousetrap necklace.
That same mousetrap design has been breaking mouse necks since the age-old "build a better mousetrap" problem was solved back in 1897. It has not been improved upon, but that has not stopped inventors from trying. The U.S. Patent Office has issued more than 4,400 mousetrap patents, yet only 20 have made any money.
About 400 people still apply for mousetrap patents every year. I suspect the majority of them have no ambition to get rich on their idea, they just have a morbid fascination with slaughtering mice. I can't say that I blame them.
Both before and after the 1897 success story, an unending stream of gadgets for mashing, cutting, maiming, drowning and capturing mice have been invented. People even tried electrocution in the early 20th Century, but the electrocuted mice did not have the decency to stop frying after they died. The scent of broasted mouse innards was not considered conducive to good sales, so another patent failed.
Another complicated patent from 1908 would ensnare a rat by the neck, then release it. The escapee, while delighted, was soon mortified to discover that he had a bell tied around his neck. The theory was that the "bell-rat" would return to his colony and frighten the rest of his ratty buddies so much that they would leave the premises. It was not a popular or excessively effective method of extermination.
A superglue trap came out in the 1980s that worked quite well, but it had some unsavory side effects. The homeowners found themselves faced with a screaming mouse that slowly died of exhaustion. It was not a resounding success.
A German man has a collection of more than 2,400 different mousetraps from 65 countries. Many are so bizarre they could have been devised by the Inquisition, who probably treated rodents almost as bad as they treated people.
The battle between man and mouse is as old as man himself. My war won't be the last one either, it just happens to be the most important. I guess we are winning, but I am not so sure the Mouse Gazette would agree.
We are still breathing, still kicking and the rodent population is slowly dwindling.
It's just that, sigh, I still get the feeling that they are laughing at us.
I hates meeces to pieces!