I have a ninja mouse in my apartment. I set six traps for it: two live catch traps, two of these new, black, fancy traps -- and two of the good ol' fashioned Victor snap traps.
I set the live catch traps with peanut butter and a mix of mozzarella and cheddar cheese. The four snapping traps each got a small pile of crumbled cheese bits.
The cheddar was Tillamook, extra sharp -- good stuff, really. I laid out a feast for this little guy.
I placed all six traps around the dining room and on the counters in the kitchen in places where I'd seen the little mouse droppings. And I waited.
A few days went by, and nothing. The cheese was getting hard ... and it sorta looked like some was actually disappearing. Couldn't be. The traps were still set.
One day, I noticed a few mouse dropping right next to a few of the traps. Lovely. It was like the thing was defecating on my sense of human superiority.
But that was before today. Today, I woke up ... and all of the cheese was gone from the four snap traps. The live catch traps ... still stocked. But the other ones? Clean. Not a crumb. Not even the slightest trace of cheese.
How in the hell does a mouse do that? If you think about it, that's a ballsy rodent. Not just one trap ... but four ... picked clean, at great risk of not just injury, but immediate and spine-cracking death.
You couldn't find a human with those kinda cajones. And yet, there they were: four clean traps. It was like a big "F*#@ YOU for trying to catch me!" from the mouse.
I'm not sure whether to be impressed or scared.
And so I've nicknamed him Ninja Mouse, in homage to his/or her incredible stealth and lightness of foot. Let's call it a him ... I don't think a girl mouse would have the audacity to crap on my counters.
Also, I'm going to assume, for the time being, that he works alone. A posse of ninja mice would be too much to take.
I've never seen Ninja Mouse, but his shit on my counters is the proof in the pudding. Ok, maybe that's an inappropriate metaphor. Ugh.
It's like a daily reminder of my inability as a big, bad human to reign him in. A trail that leads to nowhere. No big holes ... no chewed up food ... no nothin'. A mouse trained in the shadow arts -- adept at deception. I've searched everywhere, mind you. Behind all the furniture, in every draw. I've even cleaned up a storm ... only to have him shit on my sparkling counters.
I picture him slinking down the walls on a strand of rope, dressed entirely in black with a pair of nunchucks strapped to his back for protection. Silently he parcels off the cheese, slipping each chunk off with a dexterity honed through years of practice. In my mind he has the skill of a highly trained professional ... preparing to shlep it all back to his hungry family in a leather side pouch that has grown worn over the years. Worn and tattered from loads of rice, cheese, peanut butter, crackers ... who knows.
He's sly. He's got a sense of humor. Why else would he crap the most right next to the damned traps?
Then, just like that, he's gone. Perhaps I stumbled into the living room on my way to the coffee pot ... or maybe, like some odd Pavolovian trick, he's realized that when the alarm clocks blare, it's time to skidaddle.
Whatever the disturbance, he's always gone without a trace or a sound by the time my roommate or I round the corner into the kitchen.
It's a slight knock to my small-town pride that the very traps he stole the cheese off of were manufactured at Woodstream just off the main street of dear old Lititz, Pennsylvania.
And so I submit this entry as a tribute to the third inhabitant of my apartment.
Ninja mouse, you have bested me for now. At present, there are two lines of three snap traps waiting for you out there, two live catch traps ... and gobs and gobs of peanut butter.
I went out today looking for glue traps, but the stores around here don't seem to carry them.
So, to ride the horse that brung me, so to speak, I bought two more of Lititz's most updated Victor traps. The bait is set, the springs are taught ... and all I can do is hope I awake to a snap in the night.
The exterminator's scheduled to come tomorrow ... I need back up. With luck, it'll be curtains for you.
But you, Ninja Mouse, have proven yourself a worthy adversary -- you have humbled me, and won my respect.
