Spoon Jackson, and the whole cell block, battle a mouse in the hole.
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I had forgotten how slack and taunting the Lancaster mice were. How they shape shift from one dimension to another and ease through cracks so small one cannot see them.
One mouse has now for weeks outsmarted prisoners and guards and turned his nose up to traps set to ensnare him. The mouse had telepathy or something.
I had just moved into cell block five and my plastic container lid was cracked. The mouse came in and slithered through the slit, where my packaged food was and proceeded to eat his way through sunflower seeds, destroying two bags and then he feasted on my Oreo cookies – not just one, but he nibbled on five different cookies.
Normally, I sought to commune with the different animal species I encountered in prison, yet there was no communication with Super Mouse. I only found out about the second bag of sunflower seeds when I picked it up – seeds fell like rain. The next night I was given “Stick-Em” type mouse traps, sticky traps, ones that are considered humane.
Nothing was ever cleaned, so mice had the run of the place for years.
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For many years building five had been “the hole”, which means there were no prisoner movement except in handcuffs and chains or shackles around legs. Nothing was ever cleaned, so mice had the run of the place for years until, recently it was brought on line and made a regular building. So the mice like any thinking living creature were protesting against their homes and lives being changed like animals losing a habitat like a forest or a lake.
That next night I waited in silence and darkness for the mouse. I blocked the bottom of the cell door except one small area where I laid the trap. I knew how much he loved Oreo cookies, so I placed a double stuffed crumb in the middle of the trap.
I waited, and at about 1 am the shadow of the mouse appeared by the door. He looked in, sniffed the air, then strolled on down the hall. I thought I heard a giggle.
I told some people the next day what had happened. Prisoners and guards told me; Oh, you used the wrong bait, he probably reached across the trap and nibbled at the cookie, but what really excites them is peanut butter. So I asked the guard; You have traps all over your office, how many mice have you caught? Oh, none.
That night I dropped some peanut butter on the trap and left it at the corner of the door, the only entrance to the cell. One night passed, then two, three. The whole week passed and nothing happened.
Sticky traps were everywhere, like mine fields.
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I was given many ideas on why the plan did not work. All saying mice are just stupid little animals. If that is the case, all of us are just dumb, because not one mouse had been caught in the building. Some cats put sticky traps all across their doors and on what they thought were mouse paths. Nothing worked. Sticky traps were everywhere, like mine fields. The mouse never showed, but some of the food disappeared from the traps.
Another person said I had too much peanut butter on the trap, and the mouse probably stood at the edge and reached over and ate, like cattle in a stock yard.
I decided to block the door completely and moved all of my food to higher ground. The mouse did not come back to my cage, but he frequented other cells, where some still sought to trap him.
Everyone who thought they had an edge ended up cussing and punching the air throwing away soups, cookies and crackers.
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No sticky trap ever caught a mouse, they jumped them like hurdlers or hop-scotched them and went on about their business. Everyone who thought they had an edge ended up cussing and punching the air throwing away soups, cookies and crackers. The fat handball sized mouse just ran out of my cell or my neighbour’s cell in broad day light and scooted down the hall to the green door that leads outside, where it flattened itself like paper and slipped under the door like an envelope.
I’m sure the mouse was just scouting and planning his next journey for food.
Photo: dullhunk/Flickr
I loved Spoon’s ‘Super-mouse’ story! Sometimes those little creatures can really get the best of all of us…Spoon really brought it to life…