I had an intruder this week.  Small, grey, and a long tail.  I knew he was around somewhere because he kept leaving little “calling cards.”  So I bought traps, set them with cheese and waited.

I hate killing things, so I didn’t want to use those sticky traps that a critter gets his feet stuck on and panics and screeches and suffers.  I wanted the old fashioned kind that you never know what hit you because it is over in a milli-second.

The hard part was that his eyes were open when I caught him.  He wasn’t even aware that he was dead it had happened so quickly.  Dispatching him to his final resting place also was unnerving. 

I pray that as it gets colder that all the critters will stay outside.  I have no idea how this one got in.  Maybe when I left the door ajar as I took the trash out to the street.  If I knew how to catch a mouse and put him back outside, that’s what I would do. 

I don’t want to catch mice in traps.  But I don’t want them in my house.  It is a puzzlement.  Maybe that will be the last one.  I’ll be more careful to close the door when I take out the trash from now on.  They are God’s creatures and I don’t want to send them to heaven before their time.