Mice still bedevil downtown Madison retiree

By Virginia “Jenny” Hall
Guest Columnist
Published: September 6, 2008

I’m back again because of a request from one of my friends and an Eagle reader, with a heads up on mouse catching and an ongoing mystery that I don’t expect to solve anytime soon.   

When last I wrote, I had caught/murdered/put out of their misery four nasty little mice. The day I delivered my guest column to our faithful and talented editor of The Madison County Eagle, Don Richeson, a profound mystery occurred in the same cutlery drawer that I had previously alluded to in my column.

After several “mice-less” mornings, I arose and peeked once more into the trap-dwelling drawer (say that three times). Lo and behold, there was the elusive little fellow (No. 5) I had been waiting to throw out to the wild animals that live in town (and there are many).

The only thing about this mouse was he was not in the trap nor attached to it in any way! He was lying stiffly beside the trap and I jumped back, thinking he was still alive. No, he was dead!

Recreating my mouse-catching method, I recalled using the fat meat from a piece of “Old Virginia Ham.”

So, the only thing I could come up with is:

• Idea No. 1 — The trap sprang and hit his head (although there were no wounds) and he died of a brain injury.

• Idea No. 2 — He ate the fat meat, it caused his cholesterol to climb to numbers not even seen on any chart, and he developed heart disease, and died of a heart attack.

I know, I know…that seems to be too fast a progression of heart disease, but do you have a better explanation?

My friend in North Carolina e-mailed me that perhaps it was a mouse that the tiny elves whisked away earlier in my quest to rid the house of mouse varmints, and that he simply came back to lie down and die beside the trap. If that was the answer, it “shore” was kind of him to do that.

Now, regarding the “weary-brained” part, have you ever been weary-brained? It is a real condition but it would not be found on any of my extensive medical records (listing them would give some folks a hernia).

I am weary-brained because another family of mice from who knows where has moved in.

Pickles, my dog, has been trying to tell me and I have been saying, “No, don’t tell me, I just can’t handle that again.”

However, she would not give up bounding over the kitchen floor to sniff out the lower cabinets. I did not find any evidence — if you know what I mean — so I have been ignoring her and taking almost weekly trips to the emergency room (ask me about this boring subject sometime!) and finally last night, another trap was set in a clandestine location and — “whoopee” — I got him/her/it!

Now, I have to resign myself to catching the rest of the clan. I just hope they all stay inside the trap this time!

(Guest columnist Virginia “Jenny” Hall lives in downtown Madison with her whippet-mix dog, Pickles. Now retired, she was a longtime teacher’s assistant at the old Criglersville Elementary School and a singer with various popular Madison County musical groups, including the Criglersville Trio and the LBJ Trio, which was a warm-up band for famed cowboy singer Tex Ritter.)