Case Study: Mickey Must Die

The other morning I detected a minuscule perturbation of the æther[1] – okay, a small disturbance in the Force, for you Star Wars™ fans – and I checked the mousetrap in my cutlery drawer. Sure enough, I had a victim. Being very poor, I of course considered making Mousetrap Soup, recipe below, but it was morning and I didn’t have an onion. So I actually threw out protein, which is a mortal sin in my ethos. I recommend (what used to be) a 1-pound coffee can for proper interment of mouse and mousetrap, by the way.

Bonus Hint: a solution of battery acid, C4[2] and cheap vodka is useful for cleaning the spattered mouse brains off of your knives, forks and spoons.

I set the trap in my cutlery drawer because the mice like to hang out there. I can tell because of the little tiny cigarette butts and beer cans they leave behind. I was curious what they were finding to eat in my cutlery drawer, and finally figured out that they were dining off the tiny bits of flour that had clung to my wooden rolling pin. Because it is made of wood, I generally hadn’t washed it after use, and had just brushed the dough bits and flour from it and returned it to the drawer. Now, of course, that particular operating procedure has been altered, but I was really kind of impressed at the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the mice to find and utilize the tiny amount of food that was present. The irony is not lost on me, of course: these guys are the original extreme poverty crew, and could no doubt write a better blog than this if they had tiny little laptops and a wireless connection.

While I was baiting the mousetrap, prior to the bloody but satisfying denouement described above, I first considered using cheese, which is rodent profiling and definitely not politically correct these days. I realized, however, that if I had a piece of cheese, even one that small, I’d eat it. At that point, it came to me that I’m in competition for food with mice. This actually made me feel sort of macho: I weigh 2784 times what you do, you little fuckers, and you’re going down.

To bait the trap, I ended up moistening some cookie crumbs and molding the dough mass over the trigger of the mousetrap. You do this before you set the trap, by the way.

Mousetrap Soup[3]

Ingredients

1 wooden mousetrap with mouse
2 cups water
1 medium onion

Instructions

1. Throw the mousetrap with the mouse into the CrockPot™, cover with 2 inches of water, and cook on Hi for 3 hours or Lo for 5 or 6 hours.

2. Discard the above mixture.

3. Eat the onion.

Notes

Do not use this recipe if you use the sticky mouse traps that leave the mouse alive and writhing in agony. If you do, their pitiful little screams as they cook can lessen your enjoyment of Family Ties reruns and will certainly drive your cat crazy. Try the Microwave Mousetrap Surprise recipe instead.

- Hulles

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[1] Aether: an archaic spelling of ether. It was formerly thought that the universe was filled with an invisible substance called ether, which propagated electromagnetic waves (and the death throes of rodents) through space.

[2] C4: an acronym for Composition 4, a plastic explosive. Don’t really use this to clean your silverware; save it for remodeling your upstairs neighbor’s living room.

[3] This is not a real recipe. Well, it sort of is; you can eat the onion. And by the way, the coffee they serve at McDonald’s™ is hot.