It's cold and the mice are invading. I suppose this is a natural consequence of working in a building surrounded by fields. When the temperature drops, the mice look for somewhere warm, which is usually a coworker's desk drawer and sometimes a filing cabinet. Fine, let the mice come. Rodents are people too, after all.
But wait. I work in a place where the overwhelming majority of employees are female. I hate to generalize, but aren't all women afraid of mice? Yes they are. Every day I'm greeted with more shrieking as an unfortunate coworker sees a mouse running from their cubicle or office. This always creates quite a stir and then the inevitable mob of women join the frightened victim to discuss the mouse-sighting and commiserate.
It's a mouse, ladies, not a rabid werewolf. I mean, even if it was a werewolf, and he was in the process of chewing off your arm, do you have to make so much noise? Honestly!
Traps have been set, of course, and they don't do a spit of good. The mice lick the peanut butter right off, defecate on the trap, and skip merrily away. If I learned anything from Pinky and the Brain, it's that mice are smarter than we think and we shouldn't underestimate them. Thankfully, my bosses haven't yet resorted to extreme pest-control methods, like sticky paper. Apparently, mice will chew off their own legs to get free when they're stuck on those things. Even more unpleasant than all the feminine shrieking, would be walking into work to find mouse versions of the movie “Saw” happening all around me.
My company's other building (in an adjacent city) is actually an old barn, which has been converted into office space. One of the employees at that building is a crazy cat-lady. You know the type. There are no less than 20 cats wandering the grounds of the barn. I guess if you've been with the company since it started, 35 years ago, you're allowed to keep pets. Heck, we have company sheep! The point is, we need to bring in some of those cats. Getting eaten is better than being trapped on sticky paper, as I see it. Then again, the women here would probably spend their time playing with the cats, making loud comments about how much they like cats, chatting about their cats at home, and exchanging various other cat stories. I think this would be much more annoying than the initial shrieking over mice.
Luckily, I have an out. I have headphones. No better way to snuff out petty commotions than with some SomaFM. They can keep their mice. God bless internet radio.
11 comments:
Dear Jeremy:
You may be surprised to learn that the mouse is actually a distant cousin of the rabid wherewolf-- the genus for both species is latin for "uncontrolably hairy things with teeth" which makes them (as well as some guys I know) most definitely scary. Especially if they're not your pets. The guys, I mean.
Ah, sticky paper. I know it's terribly inhumane, but I remember my parents putting it out one winter, on these white trays. The mice would get stuck, my dad would put them into a plastic bag, and then he would slam it against the house to kill it. Yeah. I need counseling.
editor: eww, thats gross. my pa used to do that to the fishes he caught.
anyway, u should use the cat idea. cats are so lovable and wont chew up the paperwork...
Those are wonderful memories.
I once had a mouse that developed a tumor. A HUGE tumor, and it looked to be causing him pain. I wanted to put him out of his misery -- although part of me just wanted to not have to look at the tumor. So I planned an execution. I actually looked up on the internet humane ways to murder a mouse. (You can find ANYTHING on the internet). Turns out, I had two options. 1) Build an elaborate "gas chamber" with dry ice or 2)take a sock, put the mouse in, then quickly slam it against a wall. Both are relatively painless. But I chose option 3) chicken out and release mouse into the woods. That way the animal dies, but you don't have to SEE it. Chalk this up on my growing list of reasons I no longer own a real pet.
Wow. So that makes like 20+ hampsters and a tumor-ridden mouse left out in the wilderness to die, and a frozen fish ground up in the disposal. I bet the humane society has blacklisted you...
Yes, the humane society sends their goons regularly. It should be noted, however, that I'm not always about killing rodents and fish. I nursed an injured crow back to health once. Hah! In fact, my bird pets have done rather well as a whole. One parakeet did try to drown another parakeet, but that wasn't MY fault. I wasn't involved.
you definitely need to stick with the birds, jeremy. and for pete's sake! stay away from my bunny!
and i concur. listening to people talk about their cats would be worse than the shrieking because of the mice. it's almost as bad as listening to people talk about their stupid kids.
Hey there Mr. What. Where ya been? Did you know that The Faint came out with a new album? "Wet from Birth." It is kickass. I would suggest you buy it immediately.
Better rodents than roaches. I can handle a tiny little field mouse. I imagine that they have little families and checkerboard tableclothes. After all, I saw The Secret Of Nimh.
BUT ROACHES ARE VILE SEEDS OF SATAN STRAIGHT FROM THE PITS OF HELL WHERE THEY WRITHE AND MULTIPLY AND BURST FORTH THROUGH THE EARTH TO SWARM THE WORLD WITH THEIR CRUNCHY CHITINOUS PESTILENCE!
and the congregation said amen.
Mmmm... Company Sheep...
-W
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