Viewpoints
Tricks to catching a mouse
The ultimate goal among amateur inventors when I was growing up was to invent a better mouse trap. The spring-loaded, finger-breaking harness on top of a flat piece of wood that was tripped when the mouse or rat nuzzled the bait and made the trap spring to crush its body with a mighty copper bar has been the industry standard almost as long as I have been alive.
The problem with these traps is that they almost are as dangerous to the setter as to the vermin for which they are intended. I have broken at least three finger bones and Heaven knows how many blood blisters on the index finger of my left hand, all attained from trying to set that little bar on the bait bucket and turn it loose without getting snapped.
I am probably hellbound for the cussing I’ve done setting mouse traps.
But last year, Loretta came up with half a dozen traps that consisted of little boxes with sticky glue on the bottom. The mouse is supposed to walk in, lured by cheese, and his feet get glued to the walkway in the trap. Once caught, you take the trap and mouse and haul out into the country, flick it on its behind and said mouse has been caught and released humanely.
What a ruse.
Consider yourself a mouse. Would you rather be caught in the cheese there on the bait spring with a single snap of the trap that broke your neck and rendered instant death, or would you rather suffer, glued to a piece of card board and hauled out into a field, set loose with glue on all four feet and be chomped on by the next coyote?
If I’m a mouse, I’m going for the trap every time. If I’m a mouse and I’m going to be trapped for my nuisance, then get it over with and put my carcass in the garbage.
One night, last winter, I was up late reading and I heard the most pitiful squall — MEOOOOWWWWErRRRRRRR and then a pounding WHAP WHAP WHAPPP WHAPP and then an “oh help me God, death is uon me” meow and a rattle from the kitchen.
And then more whap, whap, whap, whaps against the kitchen floor.
Our cat had found a way to open the pantry closet door and stuck her foot into one of Loretta’s glue based mouse traps and she was terrified. She had glue halfway up her pointing paw. She now avoids the pantry.
But, there is a better mouse trap and that’s what I wanted to tell you in the first place.
And, as inventions go, this one is the best to come along in decades.
I purchased four mini trex, spring-loaded traps just weeks ago and so far I have not had a miss. You fill the bait bowl with cheese or peanut butter and literally cock them like a pistol and set them wherever mice are prone to feed.
No mashed fingers. Instant death. And ample proof that a new and effective mouse trap has been invented.
You will be amazed!
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Government protects the little guy
Over a century ago, William Jennings Bryan presided over mass rallies of mostly middle-class Americans angry about economic inequities. The tea party activists gathered in Washington last weekend for Glenn Beck’s event shared similar concerns. Both leaders framed their populist mission in Christian terms.
But Bryan’s people knew the source of their insecurity. Beck’s don’t.
Bryan’s populists blamed unregulated banks and industrial mammoths for oppressing the middle class on down. They wanted government to protect them from marauding monopolies. -
Nothin’ like Mom’s fried apple pies
I pretty much grew up on dried apples. From late August until this time of year, Mom would patiently peel and thinly slice a variety that we called “horse apples” because it was a variety that Pap had lost the name, but the draft horses on the place and the mules and cows loved to munch them. Mom only knew for sure that he had ordered the trees from Stark’s brothers and that it was a brought-on variety.
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Voter mood a big factor
FRANKFORT — Kentucky is in the middle of a nationally watched U.S. Senate race, but the week’s news was dominated by the announcement that David Williams and Richie Farmer have formed a ticket to run for governor next year. Meanwhile, fears are growing the sluggish economic recovery is in trouble and the voter mood continues to sour.
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Down with big government, big business and big labor
Some of the most important things in history are things that didn’t happen -- even though just about everyone thought they would.
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Looking at the generic race
Gallup is out this week with a new poll showing the generic Republican beating the generic Democrat in House contests by 10 points. The gap, Gallup points out, is the biggest one it has seen in midterm generic polls since it started doing them. It is substantially larger than the gap in 1994, when Republicans took control of the House in the first midterm election of the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton.
Does that mean it’s time for Republicans to start picking the drapes for their new leadership offices? Should Nancy Pelosi be packing up her gavel? -
Can the Tea Party deliver?
“There are only two men in America who can fill Yankee Stadium on three weeks’ notice,” a friend instructed me years ago.
“Billy Graham and Louis Farrakhan.” -
You never get something for nothing
Perhaps the most difficult economic lesson is that we live in a world of scarcity and everything has a cost. Scarcity exists whenever human wants exceed the means to satisfy those wants.
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The myth of equality
In 21st century America, institutional racism and sexism remain great twin evils to be eradicated on our long journey to the wonderful world where, at last, all are equal.
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Williams, Farmer may be on the ticket
FRANKFORT — Signs point to an announcement soon that David Williams and Richie Farmer will form a Republican ticket for governor and lieutenant governor. Williams badly wants to run and openly covets Farmer as his running mate.
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Hangover from the bailout party
Let’s face it, we screwed up.
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Government protects the little guy
