M-O-U-S-E

If you were wondering, that's how you spell nuisance. It's unbelievable. I'm convinced that there is a controlled habitat exercising Darwin's Theory of Evolution playing out in our attic. The mice are getting smarter. It's the only excuse.

D caught a fourth mouse--peacefully. However, again, both traps were void of bait (peanut butter). So clearly, the Alpha mouse is still sending his minions to the traps in order to set them off (and kill his competition) so that he can get the peanut butter. The strange this was the empty trap. The peanut butter was gone, but the trap hadn't gone off. So D tested the trap. And by tested, he set it, and then dropped a screw on it to see if it would go off. It did. And proceeded to fly up in the air. Very curious indeed, since now we know the trap works.

D decided to use his resources. The traps have a little plastic piece of "swiss cheese" where you are to place your bait. D thought if he stuffed the peanut butter into the holes, the mouse would have to work hard to get it all out and in doing so, the trap would go off. So he reset the traps and waiting.

I must interject that I'm pretty sure we're getting to the point of Wile E. Coyote trying to catch the Road Runner, minus the part where Wile E. Coyote gets hurt from his antics. D hasn't a scratch on him (yet) from this escapade, but I can tell he doesn't like the idea of being outsmarted by a mouse.

Sure enough, along came another mouse, caught in the trap. And again, the peanut butter was gone in both traps.

Now for those of you concerned that we're treating the symptom, not the problem, please know we have found the entry point for the enemy. D has developed a solution for keeping any more critters from gaining entry, but we still don't know how big the army we're fighting is. Clearly, as I said, there were enough to create a science-project scale version on observing survival of the fittest.

We're getting there. I'm hoping were actually nearing the end because I don't know if there is enough fodder here for this to keep being funny. But who knows? Maybe I can salvage the situation for humor. After all, when D and I were reading before bed last night, we both stopped and looked up. It sounded like a scamper, but we only heard it once. I thinking now the mice might just be screwing with us.