RIP.
I feel I need to pay tribute to the cunning and guile of a tremendous survivor. Against all odds he had clung on, outwitting the dark forces that sought to take his life, but last night he finally succumbed and may he rest in peace.
I got to know him around 8 months ago, it'll sound odd but we first met at around 4:30Am on a partiularly early start. I was off on a business trip and was up early. He too was up early. At first it was just a movement in the corner of my eye as I left but in a flash he was gone. I thought notthing of it, that time of the morning there are some strange people around, so I got on with my day with the odd thought abuot my new mysterious early morning friend.
The kids saw him in the morning now and then, but I never managed to catch up with him. He was like one of those guys that whistles in the street, you can hear him, you hear tale of his tunes, but he's never there when you are so you're not sure if he's real. It wasn't until around 2 months later that I saw him again. As most of you will know I have a fairly well stocked house which my nature means we have an extremely well stocked shoe cupboard. You can actually crouch and walk into it and around a corner, treading on a bath of shoes. It's like Scrooge McDuck and his money swimming only slightly more leathery. I digress, I was rooting around for a particularly evasive football boot and had thrown a good pile of shoes into the hall in search, when there he was. I'm not sure who was more shocked, I jumped and banged my head on the low roof of the cupboard, he jumped and ran. Hiding in the pile of shoes I'd already thrown into the hall. Like any real man, I went and got the missus. "Are you sure?", "Yes, he's in the shoes, I saw him, he's about 15KG of muscle, that's why I jumped, you gotta help me sort it, equality etc".
We started pairing the shoes and putting them back. I say we, I made a particular meal of sorting out laces on one shoe and watched in awe as my missus casually threw shoe after shoe back in the cupboard with no sign of fear, was she mad or foucsed on the goal. No sign, he was gone, like willow the wisp, there in a breath and then taken from my life. I picked up the last trainer and as I swung it, there he was. Like a furry cannonball he shot out of the trainer, pausing to give me a chinese burn he was up my arm, then onto the floor and into the lounge. I screamed. You know, like a man. Now things were heating up. Once I'd dressed the wound I summoned the troops. We had a door that was off it's hinges that we used as a coralling board and a mop. Much ado later we chaperoned him to the garden doors and encouraged him out. I suggested we kill it hard, but inside I was glad when I was talked down. To be honest I would have insisted that nobody watch and would have faked his death, so we could continue our battle of wits unwatched. He got outside and disappeared.
Roll on another month. Droppings. In the food cupboards. Not good. I cleaned them out and went to get a humane trap. 2 weeks later and another early start. I got a work call at 1:30am and had to log in. I was working away and I could hear him sneaking up on me, I'm pretty sure he had a knife so I turned slowly to confront him and again, he was gone. I laid my humane trap, turned my back and waited. Cold sweat formed on my brow, I could hear him approach, teeth like grinding gears in a huge clock, knife scraping along the walls thinking I wasn't aware of his approach, I found his weakness, His desire to take me down was too strong. He stumbled into my trap! Job done. I picked him up, put him outside and left it whilst I worked, with the intention of taking him to the woods and giving him the 'old yella' treatment. I finished my work around 1pm, went out to pick him up and he'd gone. I think he'd fashioned an escape tool fomr stale cheese and a hairpin. We could have been friends, but now, it's war.
B&Q relieved me of some money and I returned, 2 deadly spring traps, no more Mr Nice Guy. I laid them out, the classic cheese bait and waited. Days past and then I checked. Cheese gone, trap unsprung. I tried pate and chocolate spread, he wouldn't be able to get that without springing the deadly snap. Nights passed, he must have used his whip and a match to hold the spring open, he worked the traps clean, every night, every bait, my nemesis was good. I could feel him watching me as I loaded the traps, eyes boring into my soul. Cold black eyes showing a mind whose depths are deep and dark like a bottomless abyss, who knew what horrors were in there. More traps, humane and deadly, all expertly avoided.
We picked up his trail in the food cans cupboard, he'd been nibbling the lid of the sunflower oil, a beast of class and taste, yet healthy to boot, this was a breakthrough. I placed my humane trap on the cupboard entry, could he resist? Things went quiet for a couple of weeks then a phone call. My distraught other half had gone to do some cooking, pulled out the oil and there he was, he'd climbed in, but couldn't swim in the golden liquid. Paws scrabbling at the sides to no avail. One mouse. Drowned in oil, many a slip betwixt cup and lip, and he had fallen.
I miss the little blighter, we had a bond, man and beast locked in a deadly game of chess. I had prevailed, not through my cunning, but through one tiny judgement error in which I can take no solice. I feel unsatisfied.
Next week I take on the snails.
haha excellent.
They certainly are crafty buggers. I'm swear when I capture them and put them out in the top of the garden I can almost see them beating me back to the house.
Out last house was on a farm and we have brown field rats - they really freaked me out.
We have mice all the time now. Lucy brings them home for us, usually dead, but sometimes alive and then hilarity ensues as Toby gets hold of them and struts around the house like a king!
James, you have a talent........ For some reason i couldn't stop reading.
My version.
Seen a mouse, Looked at it, Committed suicide by oil.
The mightiest foes, can sometimes be the smallest ones..
I remember doing weekly skirmishes with a mouse in my old appartment, took me 5 months to get rid of it -.- (actually didnt even do it, it also suicided by eating over a powercable)
Great story Benny,others before you have admired the beast :)
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
I'm truly sorry man's dominion,
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!
Mine usually end like this.
(http://www.bunicomic.com/comics/2012-07-25-Buni.gif)
Quote from: Liberator;355853Mine usually end like this.
(http://www.bunicomic.com/comics/2012-07-25-Buni.gif)
And you wonder why the other kids dont wanna play with you :P
awesome mouse vs man !
Some time last year when lying in bed, about to go to sleep, i heard something rattling the cupboard doors in the bedroom, and told the wife to stop it, she said, i`m next to you....
so foot out of the bed, booted the door, the scratching and rattling stopped... for about 10 seconds....
this went on a few times, then that was it !
The man was up, out of the bed, and put the light on !
searching wildly i spied the beast, running for the laundry basket... Well that was just not on, i was having rodents dropping in my pants, no sir !
i quickly grabbed the basket off the floor, the beast paused.....
next thing it saw was the bottom of the basket rapidly approaching its body, and before it had the time to utter the words from alien "lets get the fekk outa here" it was ...
GAME OVER MAN,GAME OVER !
one dead alien invader in my bedroom, quickly launched outside where upon the rest of the aliens could feast upon its corpse !
I play marksman shooting with mine with a gas powered BB gun (if you MOD it slightly so it can be cocked multiple times its quite powerful).
End result below.
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It was in full flight when I shot the bugga from one side of the room to another.
It was freaking the Mrs out so had to go.
We had 3 cats (down to two now) and good mousers all. Never had a problem with the little things other than the odd one from the garden coming back dead.
I'm still proud of this one:
That was across my garden with an air rifle. I was cheating though, resting on a rail and had the crosshairs of the sight lined up with the edge of the chicken feeder they'd been stealing food from at the point nearest their nest.
Also back when we were making biodiesel in serious quantity we had a few rats make a dive into the disgusting animal fats and left at the ends of barrels that we'd pour into a trough. They didn't have the delicate palate that your mouse had, that stuff was foul. There's a lot of satisfaction in a man vs beast battle like that...even if we are many many times their size and using vastly superior tools.
EDIT: Censored Image and resized and blurified. - Showed up the same...so removed - Can't get photobuckets link to match what is visible in the album.
Let's keep the photos small and blurry like the mice please. Too much detail, photoshop or not, and we'll end up hosting an RSPCA benefit.
(image removed from T-Bag's post immediately above)
We had mice at my parents home in the late 80's.
We caught them in "humane" traps and stuck them in an empty fish tank to await transport 2 miles away (a safe distance we're told).
However, the second catch of the day ATE the first - which was pregnant - eww, and so he went swimming in the cesspit, as did all later catches until the complete tribe were eradicated.
So, in conclusion - use a humane mouse trap so you can look them in the eye before you kill them!!
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I caught this one in the garden, so he was ejected from the pot of bird nuts and asked (nicely) to leave. As he wasn't in my house, he lived to munch another day!
they're good protein! :norty: