In Response to a Comment

So, I actually do read the comments you guys leave . . . I love them actually. They make me feel like I have sort of hung out with you a bit, like we sort of had a conversation and touched base.

ANYWAY, Dave's recent comment about sponsoring a competition to build/design a humane mouse removal system made me laugh because it reminded me of one of my favorite stories about one of my favorite people. Let's call this favorite person of mine Dot. .

Approximately 50 yrs ago when I was in college, I took a wood working/sculpture art class. Dot . . was in the class with me and we had the greatest, hippy dippy pot head, free spirited, prof on the planet. I am pretty sure her name was Willow or Pond Frond or something like that. She really might have been the very definition of "Art Professor at a Liberal Arts College" . . . only maybe more so if it were circa 1972 and we were at Berkley. But whatever you get my drift, she saw beauty in everything and applauded all effort regardless of talent.

Well, one of our assignments was to build a trap. In her free spirited way she didn't define the assignment any more clearly that that. As you can imagine this made me nearly apoplectic and made Dot . . just ignore the assignment. So a few weeks went by and on presentation day Dot . . appeared in class frazzled and holding what sort of resembled a mini McDonalds constructed out of scrap wood and covered in still wet paint. The ensuing conversation when something like this:

me: what is that?
Dot.. : a mouse trap.
me: it sort of looks like a McDonalds
Dot.. : it is. its a McDonalds mouse trap
me: how does it trap mice?
Dot.. : they smell the delicious fries, come through the front doors and get trapped b/c the doors only open inwards.
Dot.. : shut up
me: and who's making the fries in there? other mean spirited mice? i mean you can't fit a cat in there.
Dot.. : shut up

The greatest part of this story is that Willow Pond Frond completely overlooked the fact that there was a drive thru (let alone a staff of hair netted misanthropic mice) thereby completely negating any sort of effective trapping and gave Dot . . an A on the assignment.

So, Dave the most humane of all mouse traps has already been designed. I just need to staff it with meanie mice, teach them how to make fries, and put a mini pylon cone in the drive thru, and I am all set.

In case you were wondering, my trap was the Corporate Trap. It consisted of a business suit and button up shirt purchased at Goodwill that I converted into a straight jacket. It was my short lived rebellion against grown ups asking me what I was going to do after college.

Arguably the best trap was crafted by a female classmate who dragged a lazy boy recliner into the art studio, put a cooler of beer and a bag of chips next to it and surrounded the whole thing with a shower curtain covered in taped up pictures of Victoria Secret and Sport Illustrated Swim Suit models. She called it, The Man Trap.