John weighs the mousetrap conundrum

I have a room in my basement that is part storage, part ping pong. Years ago I bought the kids the table and it looked hideous in the dining room so that’s where it ended up. My youngest and I were playing the other day and right at the crucial moment of a tight match he yelled, “MOUSE.” Sure enough a tiny mouse scurried from one side of the room to the other. I’m not as quick as I used to be because he darted behind stacks of storage crates before I could squish him. Suddenly I was recreating that scene from “The Green Mile” where the prison guards have to take everything out of a room in order to find the mischievous mouse. Unlike the movie I found him but, again, he made a couple of moves like Barry Sanders carrying a football and scooted right by me and vanished under the stairs.

Seeing a mouse is nothing new since I live in the country, but usually I only get them in November when the temperature drops. Even though I have the extremely catchy Catseye jingle permanently burned into my brain I try not to call in the professionals for mice and handle the critters myself. The cheapest way is to buy those prehistoric traps that snap shut and break the poor thing’s back, but every time one of them went off in the basement I’d jump out of my chair. Yes, they’re that loud. The man at the hardware store suggested I get some sticky traps but even that felt a bit inhumane. I had visions of some cute little mouse named Fievel walking across the thing, getting stuck and then writhing in agony for days until I found him. I want the mouse gone but I don’t want him to suffer. Typically I use poison, which I know works quicker, but even that leaves me feeling a bit guilty. I know what you’re thinking: aren’t there traps that catch them but don’t hurt them? So you trap them, release them back into the wild and then what? They circle back and come right back in? This mouse business is so confusing. Once a long time ago one of my kids had a pet hamster. They look like a mouse only nicer. His name was “Snowball” but it should have been Houdini because he was constantly breaking out of his cage. I can’t say I blame him. If my only recreation was running on a wheel and going nowhere fast I’d want to pull a little Shawshank Redemption myself and Andy Dufresne my way out of there too. The last time Snowball escaped I couldn’t find him so I set up an elaborate trap. I put a shoebox up in the air, being held by a stick with a string attached to some bait. I figured when he took the cheese the stick would move, the box fall and Andy would be back in his cell with Red. I even put a small bell on top of the box so I’d here it jingle when I got him. Every night the cheese disappeared but he never tripped the trap. So what to do about this latest mouse that interrupted my ping pong match? I laid out some poison and the next morning saw it was disturbed but none of the poison was eaten. I can only assume he poked it with his tiny paw, gave it a sniff and said, “Yeah, not so fast, Gray.” A day or two went by when it was my dog Max who saved the day. Max is 8 years old now and doesn’t move very fast unless he really wants to. As I sat in my living room watching TV I heard Max lunge and run back and forth in the kitchen. I investigated only to find he had cornered the mouse behind the fridge. Good boy! After stepping aside I got the broom and gave Mr. Mouse a good whack on the noggin. He keeled over like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert and I scooped him up in the dust pan. I could see his little chest going up and down so I knew it wasn’t a fatal blow so I took him outside and tossed him into the woods. I don’t know how he made out after that but something tells me he woke up and went about his little mouse life. Not that long ago a bear was spotted not far from my home. I think I’m the only one in the neighborhood who thinks that’s super cool. Every night when I drive home late I pray my headlights will catch a glimpse of him sauntering around so I can say hello. Although something just occurred to me; you don’t think he’s friends with that mouse do you? I can only imagine how that conversation would go. Bear, “Hey tough guy, you wanna try hitting me with a broom?” I’ll definitely call Catseye on that one.

John Gray is a news anchor on WXXA-Fox TV 23 and ABC’S WTEN News Channel 10. His column is published every Wednesday. Email johngray@ fox23news.com.