Sunday, May 14, 2006

My Horrible Small-Rodent Incident

CAUTION: Do not read this post if you have just eaten. You have been warned.

My buddy Ian, a fellow blogger (http://bungeeventure.blogspot.com), wrote about the horrible demise of his pet hamster Spock in his blog yesterday, and I told him to ask me about my own horrible small-rodent story. He did, and suggested I post it here, so here goes.

A couple of summers ago, my husband and I were having a slight mouse problem in our home. I really despise mice, and it was horrible enough having them around. I would be sitting watching t.v. at night and I would see one with my peripheral vision, just whiz by from behind a chair or something. I'm sure you know how fast mice are. I would just seem them out of the corner of my eye, as a black blur. This was not the worst of it.

In order to deal with this situation, we called an exterminator, who put poison down in various places in the house. My husband also went to the hardware store and got some glue boards. These things are rectangular pieces of cardboard about 12 inches long, 4 or 5 inches wide, with glue covering the whole surface, so that when the little critters ran over them, they would get stuck and not be able to get away. Even though I really hate mice, I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for them to end up in this predicament. All that they would be able to do is struggle to get away, sit there when they realized they couldn't, and wait to expire. But hey, when it comes to living with them or not living with them, I'll take NOT living with them, thank you very much.

So one hot summer weekend, we went up north as usual, and before we left, my husband put a few glue boards down. When we came back, sure enough, I could see when we walked in the door that something had been caught. I can't remember if it was still alive or not, but I remember when I looked down at it, I saw this mouse sitting there, and (hold on to your lunches or dinners), I saw these little pink, fleshy bits around it. I thought, holy shit, it must have ripped itself open and its guts came out. In sick fascination, I bent closer to look, and I realized that the little pink bits were hairless mouse babies. A pregnant mouse had gotten stuck on this glue board and ended up giving birth, and of course the babies were stuck too, as a result. There were about 3 or 4 of them.

It was one of the grossest things I have ever seen in my life, and I still have the image of it in my mind today. Okay, I made you sick. Sorry. But that's my horrible small-rodent incident. Hope you enjoyed it, Ian. :-)

5 Comments:

Blogger dreaminglily said...

Didn't make me sick, made me sad lol But I like mice. Just not wild in the house lol

~Lily

9:25 PM  
Blogger SJ said...

I did enjoy it! I like the idea of the mouse popping out kids. Pity you hadnt been there to see it!

2:10 AM  
Blogger emily pound said...

Ewwwwwwww, Ian!!!!

4:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

yikes! that would have been a scary site to see but I would have looked anyway. :)

5:57 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was using those glue traps one year when for some reason there was an infestation of other odd critters in my house (seems to me it was the year it flooded really badly). Anyway, I wound up with a snake trapped on it but not only that, when it tried to free itself it wound up coiling itself around the leg of the microwave cart and getting stuck again! It was an incredibly hard time getting it out of the house. I'm not afraid of snakes but it was alive and kept whipping itself around in a frenzy to get loose. Would've tried to free it outside but it was too badly stuck.

7:57 AM  

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