The exterminator dropped by yesterday and asked to come in. I turned him away because Shawn and I don’t like having chemicals in our apartment. “Anyway,” I told him, “I haven’t seen a bug or mouse in this house for a couple months. (Famous last words, right?)
I’m a better exterminator thant the exterminator anyway. He swears by glue traps. I swear by snap traps. He sprays chemicals and uses ineffective poisons. I use Skippy peanutbutter and intuition.
Since we’ve lived in the City, we’ve moved from one mouse-infested apartment to the next. Our current apartment is the worst. I’ve averaged one mouse kill per month, which would put my extermination total around 30. Think I’m exaggerating? Not a bit. Think I’m proud? Damn right! And if you think I’m a little cavalier about my mouse killing, too bad. Even tenderhearted Shawn hates the little buggers.
You see, we live in a building that is 150 years old. Each time I call our building manager up about the problem, she looks around for a mouse hole, fills it, and tells me we’ll be mouse-free. She knows as well as I know that that’s bullshit. The Buddhist building owners have done nothing to the structure of this brownstone since they bought it 30 years ago except slap a little paint on here and there. It’s not that we have one mouse hole. Our entire apartment is a mouse hole. In fact, I even saw a mouse peep his little head out from the top of our crown molding one day. They’re in the walls, man!
Just a few minutes ago, I was doing the dishes and figured I’d better check our mousetrap. Something smelled a little funky. Sure enough, I’d got one. They can’t resist the Skippy.
Each time I kill a mouse, I have to laugh a little. The reason is because the Buddhists in this building believe in reincarnation. So, each time I catch a mouse in my snap trap, I think of dropping the thing off in front of one of the Buddhist’s doors with a note that says, “Herein lies your uncle Tom. May he come back as a cockroach.”
Go Skippy!
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