Checkbook? Laundry? Dinner? Garbage? Every chore in your household likely has a preferred doer. While it may be that either partner is capable of performing any task, each gravitates to things they do better or away from things they do worse. I don't mind doing our finances, and indeed actually enjoy making the books balance. On the other hand I've screwed up enough laundry that I'm prohibited from going anywhere near the washer or dryer without explicit instructions.
Still, when my wife knocked on my home office door and stuck her head in, I could see from her expression and demeanor that she had an "ask." Not an ask as in "if you don't mind can you lend a hand," but an ask as in "this one is yours." Turns out that little snap I heard was not the heat clicking on, nor yet another package being dropped by the front door. Rather it was sound of a mousetrap being tripped in the storeroom. While putting away some odds and ends she had just discovered the unlucky tripper. And the task of disposing of same was most assuredly "mine."
Like many homes and apartments, we get visits from small friends from time to time. Similar to the good bacteria in your gut, we usually have a symbiotic relationship: we don't bother them, and they don't bother us. But especially when the seasons change or there is work being done around the outside, they get disrupted. They want to see what all the fuss is about, and out they come.
When we spot their leavings we figure the current truce is over. A call goes out to the exterminator, who leaves bait blocks and other goodies. Mice and other rodents gorge on them, then crawl away and eventually succumb (enough with the soft sell: they die). The hope is that they will find their way back outside before doing so. Otherwise we walk into a room and detect with a sniff that they never made it to their nest. Sometimes we find the affected critter under or behind something. As often as not, we don't. The smell eventually fades, and months later when moving a box or old appliance we find a mummified Mr. Whiskers.
And so in addition to the bait we put out traps. There are many options: with more than 4400 variations on file at the US Patent office, the mousetrap is the most invented machine in history. Every year another dozen "new" approaches are granted a license in 39 official subclasses including "Impaling," "Smiting," "Swinging Striker," "Nonreturn Entrance," "Choking or Squeezing," "Constricting Noose," and "Electrocuting and Explosive." These days you can even buy WiFi enabled traps, which tie into your home network and alert you if they have a kill. Still, in spite of the inexorable march of progress and the myriad of choices, we defer to good old-fashioned snap traps.
Indeed it was that device that led to a victory for our side in the storeroom. I took the loser and the instrument of his demise out to the trash, and grabbed a fresh replacement from my workshop. It was a slightly updated version from the one that had done its job, with a larger plastic trigger plate in place of the smaller metal one in the original design. No matter: the guts were the same. It is the model that defines the state of the art, and that's saying something since it is also basically unchanged since its invention.
Created in 1899 and patented in 1903 under the trade name Victor, it is evidence of low tech at its finest. A 3-inch by 1.5-inch pallet of pine. A fifteen-gauge coil-spring attached to a metal bar used as a striker. A baiting plate. And a trigger rod connecting the two. A complex task made simple, all wrapped in a timeless design and minimalist aesthetic. If the iPhone had a bait plate, this would literally be its killer app.
Our defenses refreshed, I turned off the light, closed the storeroom door and returned to my office. I settled in to balance our checkbook. All was peaceful in the wild kingdom; equilibrium was restored. If all stay in their lanes, no one gets hurt. But if push come to shove, I know where the peanut butter is kept.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford prefers peanut butter to cheese, for him and the mice. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Still, when my wife knocked on my home office door and stuck her head in, I could see from her expression and demeanor that she had an "ask." Not an ask as in "if you don't mind can you lend a hand," but an ask as in "this one is yours." Turns out that little snap I heard was not the heat clicking on, nor yet another package being dropped by the front door. Rather it was sound of a mousetrap being tripped in the storeroom. While putting away some odds and ends she had just discovered the unlucky tripper. And the task of disposing of same was most assuredly "mine."
Like many homes and apartments, we get visits from small friends from time to time. Similar to the good bacteria in your gut, we usually have a symbiotic relationship: we don't bother them, and they don't bother us. But especially when the seasons change or there is work being done around the outside, they get disrupted. They want to see what all the fuss is about, and out they come.
When we spot their leavings we figure the current truce is over. A call goes out to the exterminator, who leaves bait blocks and other goodies. Mice and other rodents gorge on them, then crawl away and eventually succumb (enough with the soft sell: they die). The hope is that they will find their way back outside before doing so. Otherwise we walk into a room and detect with a sniff that they never made it to their nest. Sometimes we find the affected critter under or behind something. As often as not, we don't. The smell eventually fades, and months later when moving a box or old appliance we find a mummified Mr. Whiskers.
And so in addition to the bait we put out traps. There are many options: with more than 4400 variations on file at the US Patent office, the mousetrap is the most invented machine in history. Every year another dozen "new" approaches are granted a license in 39 official subclasses including "Impaling," "Smiting," "Swinging Striker," "Nonreturn Entrance," "Choking or Squeezing," "Constricting Noose," and "Electrocuting and Explosive." These days you can even buy WiFi enabled traps, which tie into your home network and alert you if they have a kill. Still, in spite of the inexorable march of progress and the myriad of choices, we defer to good old-fashioned snap traps.
Indeed it was that device that led to a victory for our side in the storeroom. I took the loser and the instrument of his demise out to the trash, and grabbed a fresh replacement from my workshop. It was a slightly updated version from the one that had done its job, with a larger plastic trigger plate in place of the smaller metal one in the original design. No matter: the guts were the same. It is the model that defines the state of the art, and that's saying something since it is also basically unchanged since its invention.
Created in 1899 and patented in 1903 under the trade name Victor, it is evidence of low tech at its finest. A 3-inch by 1.5-inch pallet of pine. A fifteen-gauge coil-spring attached to a metal bar used as a striker. A baiting plate. And a trigger rod connecting the two. A complex task made simple, all wrapped in a timeless design and minimalist aesthetic. If the iPhone had a bait plate, this would literally be its killer app.
Our defenses refreshed, I turned off the light, closed the storeroom door and returned to my office. I settled in to balance our checkbook. All was peaceful in the wild kingdom; equilibrium was restored. If all stay in their lanes, no one gets hurt. But if push come to shove, I know where the peanut butter is kept.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford prefers peanut butter to cheese, for him and the mice. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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