Sunday, October 26, 2014

Big Mouse

The Complete and Total Loser's summer and early autumn tally for trapping: Three raccoons, two skunks, one opossum, and one feral cat (twice). 
Now it's getting cold and the Loser has mice in the house. He uses a no-kill trap for them, too. He trapped his first last night and let it go a few miles away while he biked for exercise. 
Victor no-kill mousetrap
A Victor no-kill mousetrap.
He used the same trap when he lived in the city. Mice are so light that it's usually hard to tell whether you've caught one or not. When the door closes there's no way to see inside and they frequently trigger the trap without entering it. The Loser found that if he picks the trap up and shakes it side to side, he can feel the small, furry body hitting the sides. This morning when he picked the trap up there was no need to do that. It was noticeably heavy. 
The Loser, being a loser, feared the worst: What if he'd trapped a pregnant female and she gave birth to her pups while in the trap? She'd be in there now, probably eating them alive! Too macabre an image to think about.
When he opened the door and tilted it, what plopped out was, fortunately, just one large, healthy and astonished mouse. It looked up at the Loser from the ground for a moment, then turned and scurried into the wild.
As big a mouse as it was, it seemed small compared to the Loser's previous catches.

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