Days of Wine and Roses, and Vasectomies

Hoppy Things Buffet

We’ve had a wintertime mouse problem in this house for years.  They live in the basement and come up into the house into the first floor any way they can.  We’ve also had a camel crickets problem, but they mostly stay in the basement.  April and Erin call them “hoppy things,” and they can jump astonishing distances for their size.  

To deal with the mice, I tried glue traps.  I put one on the concrete basement floor and left it there to see the results.  After a couple of days, I went down to check.  I had caught no mice, but a couple dozen hoppy things, which formed a squirming, thrashing mat on the surface of the glue.  I didn’t examine it long, but screamed like Homer Simpson and pelted back up the stairs.  I slammed the door to the basement and leaned against it while I caught my breath.  

After a couple more days, I got up some more nerve and went back down.  Still no mice, and no hoppy things either.  But there was a very fine reddish dust all over the glue trap and the surrounding concrete.  Upon closer inspection, mixed in with the dust was an assortment of hoppy thing parts—antennae, legs, heads, and so forth.  My conclusion is that the mice found a buffet laid out for them, and took care of it for me, fattening themselves at the same time.

8 responses to “Hoppy Things Buffet”

  1. Roger Avatar
    Roger

    We have been poisoning mice that like to hang out in the basement for years; they tend to live in the insulation, but almost never enter the rest of the house. As far as I know, we have no hoppy things, but maybe they’re hiding.

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  2. Sarah W. Avatar
    Sarah W.

    I would never have gone into the basement again. Did you? Or did you get Mary to?

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  3. Jane Pacelli Avatar
    Jane Pacelli

    Rodents are so clever! One of my late Kitty Girls brought a rat into the house and then lost interest. Until the other girl went into a “point” at the sofa bed I didn’t realize that it had taken up residence. Rat and I were both surprised to make eye contact! A traditional wooden Victor trap baited with peanut butter and a nut eventually took care of it.

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  4. eemamay Avatar
    eemamay

    Ewww

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  5. Natalie Bailey Avatar
    Natalie Bailey

    We also have hoppy things, and I’ve remained disappointed that our live-in felines don’t do anything about them!

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  6. Beverley Sharp Amberg Avatar
    Beverley Sharp Amberg

    Continuing on the rodent theme… I was very, very pregnant. We had just had company for dinner, and I hoisted my weary self upstairs, opened the bathroom closet door, and found myself staring into the eyes of a squirrel, who was perched on the towels. I started screaming and jumping up and down (can’t imagine how I accomplished the jumping!) and fled the scene. My gallant husband raced to the closet to investigate. He did not find the squirrel, but he did find an unzipped canvas zipper bag; it was full of nuts. (I guess we spoiled somebody’s dinner…)

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  7. danoinny Avatar
    danoinny

    My mice at my summer barn, I think eat other mice in the trap. My brother, whose only positive quality is he is good at predating animals, taught me to glue a sunflower seed to the mechanism. I use shoe goo. To rebait a trap, I say The Great White Mousehunter taught me this. You might know the literary reference to Great White Hunter, I don’t. I am the Great Shoegoo Fixer, I get so much fixed with that.

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  8. danoinny Avatar
    danoinny

    I admire a wren making a racket in the backyard. With the cooler break in the weather, I’ve been leaving the back door open and I napped and woke finding him flying around my living room.

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About THE BLOG

Thanks for making your way to the The Days of Wine and Roses, and Vasectomies, the personal blog of Elden Carnahan. My dad has been composing these stories as long as I can remember, either on paper or aloud around the dinner table. “You should put all your vignettes together into a book so we can sell it,” my mother would suggest from time to time.

For Christmas 2021, my sister gave Dad a Storyworth account–an online writing platform that sends you a weekly writing prompt in the form of a question. After a year or so of questions, the responses are all assembled into a hardback book. Dad took on the challenge with gusto, answering scores of questions, which often lent themselves to retellings of some of his favorite vignettes.

We’re using this blog to deliver the stories to a broader audience. Some of the posts are direct answers to Storyworth’s questions; others are stories that he wrote for other purposes. I’ll try to provide context and explanation where appropriate. Many of the images accompanying these stories were produced using DALL-E artificial intelligence, using prompts related to the stories.

Please feel free to engage with us by leaving comments, and enjoy!

-April (daughter of Elden)

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