Death By Children is about more than the nefarious and deadly machinations of our spawn or their efforts to render us twitching and pale from their ongoing appropriation of internet porn slang. It's about a lifestyle, a way of going about your day with a kind of Zen focus, a way of being ever more self sufficient and capable. To that end, we present our ongoing series of Do It Yourself projects.DIY #005: Mice.
Materials:
- Mice.
- 5 Non Lethal Mouse Traps.
- Peanut Butter
- Spoon
- 12 Lethal Mouse Traps
- Bag of frozen peas.
- Band Aids
- 12 Mint/Spearmint Mouse Deterrent Sachets
- Baffled Orkin Pest Control Rep
- The internet
Implementing the DIY Mouse Removal System
- While sitting in your chair in front of the TV, observe an improbably fat mouse waddle out from under the coat closet door, make his way past the front door, then stop to catch his breath just under the window. You may feel incredulous that this mouse has just stopped there and is visibly panting, exactly the same way you pant when you walk to the mail box.
- Observe, quietly, without alarm: Hey, look, there's a mous—
- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
- Peel wife off ceiling.
- When your daughter runs into the room to find out what's wrong, inform her, quietly, calmly, that you have observed a mou—
- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
- Peel daughter off ceiling.
- At your local hardware store, purchase a discounted bag of mouse traps.
- To set a mouse trap, carefully pull back the bar, place the tong across the bar into the lip of the bait holder. Carefully holding the trap by it's edges, apply peanut butter to—
- Apply frozen pea bag to finger for about ten minutes.
- Apply peanut butter to bait holder.
- THEN pull back the bar and clip it into the bait holder where you put the peanut butter. It is important to avoid applying the peanut butter on those parts of the bait holder where you attach the spring bar as it might—
- Apply frozen peas.
- Using a new trap, apply a small knob of peanut butter onto the bait holder, being careful to leave the lip of the bar holder clear.
- Place the loaded trap carefully on the floor in the path of the mice, being careful not to touch anyth—
- Frozen. Peas.
- Once you have placed loaded traps along the paths used by the mice, remember to check them in the morning. If a trap is not spring, do not attempt to—
- FROZ! EN! PEAS!
- Check the traps. Notice the bait holders are perfectly clean. Perhaps you forgot to put the peanut butter on them? Wait, maybe they just don't work. Maybe if you nudge the—
- [See 18]
- Replace peanut butter on traps.
- Next morning, check traps. Notice the bait holders are, again, perfectly clean. The mice ate the peanut butter.
- Call Orkin.
- When Humberto, the Orkin man, arrives try not to feel so much like a dork when he points out that the 1/2 inch gap under your screen door is letting mice into your house through the 1/4 gap under your back entrance door.
- Nod and offer a non-committal HMM HMM when Humberto points out how well you are feeding mice by leaving a solid metric ton of dry dog food in an open bag in the pantry and a good seven gallons piled into the massive dog dish.
- When you say to Humberto, "I have no idea where they're hiding," try not to seem so surprised when Humberto quickly swivels in place and shines a beam from his super cool LED flashlight into a gap beside your dry bar, illuminating a mouse curled up a into a ball with half a sandwich clutched in his little claws, snoring, and says to you "Maybe there?"
- Try not to make eye contact with Humberto when, as he is kneeling in the middle of your $40k custom kitchen baiting traps and a mouse walks out into the middle of the kitchen and looks up at him. This mouse is so fat, he looks like a gray tennis ball with a tail. When Humberto looks at the mouse, looks at you, and says 'That is one well-fed mouse," attempt nonchalance.
- Open a cabinet where you remembered you put a mouse trap. When Humberto asks why you did not bait the trap, explain to him that the ^%$# mouse ATE the ^%$#$@ peanut butter and the %$#@#! things don't work. As you and Humberto look into the cabinet at the &^%$# trap, it goes off, propelling itself out of the pantry into the middle of the kitchen floor, startling a mouse that was crouched behind you and Humberto, catching its breath. As you both watch, the mouse waddles away, stopping occasionally to put its little hand on its little knees and exclaim "I really need to work out."
- Return to hardware store. Purchase Mouse Repellent Sachets, filled with 60% spearmint and 40% mint, and 140% nuclear powered mint scent whole-house nose bomb. The instructions say to place these sachets into the crawlspaces, closed rooms, closets, and cabinets where mice are active. It EXPLICITLY REFRAINS from advising you to place a sachet in your broiler because you think you saw a mouse there.
- Refer to #29 for explanation later when you make meatloaf, thereby setting off some kind of cell-permeating Spearmint chemical bomb. Try not to laugh hysterically as your family and dogs are fleeing the house when you see that fat mouse holding a sachet, chewing placidly on a sprig of mint.
- Move.
