Most houses I know about have some sort of a junk drawer, a sort of swirling vortex where chaos reigns and the random, mostly worthless things in our lives end up--items not quite ready for the waste bin, yet not worth properly filing away. The stuff has uses, but chances are you'll never use it. Yes, the junk drawer is an all purpose repository for twist ties and odd-sized light bulbs. You have your Allen wrenches and Bic lighters. You'll find batteries, rubber bands and every manner of nut, bolt and screw. A host of adhesives are there, including that superglue with the cap fused forever shut. Magnets, old post cards, Susan B. Anthony dollars...you name it.
Our junk drawer happens to be in the kitchen, and as the kitchen doubles as our dining room, and as we occasionally treat ourselves to takeout burgers, we usually have a surplus of napkins, straws and all those little condiment packets that get stuffed into the carryout bag by the handful. I can never bring myself to toss them out. Inevitably, they end up in the junk drawer.
We spotted the mouse in our house not long after the temperature took a nosedive. Can't blame the little dude for wanting refuge from 1 degree weather, but ultimately, rodents are rodents. Ordered to evacuate the premises immediately, the mouse insisted on playing games. Fine by us. The trap was set.
Game, set, match. Hopefully our humane catch-and-release philosophy has our furry friend scampering around Happy Hollow Park, or someone else's house. Anywhere but here. Godspeed, little guy.
The story was over, or so I thought. Not long after parting ways, I discovered that, during its brief time at McBone outpost #1211, our visitor had sniffed out the junk drawer and the bounty of condiment packets contained therein. Who knew mice were so picky?
Virtually every drop of ketchup is gone. The mustard, sampled from exactly one packet, was roundly rejected.
Clearly Restaurant's Pride mustard wasn't good enough for this mouse's discerning palate. My bad. Next time we'll be sure to have some Grey Poupon on hand. Or maybe some of that stone ground French shit?
Oh, and if you all are wondering about mayonnaise, don't bother. Mice know better. So should you.
nwb
1 comment:
Who knew? Not me, that's for sure.
You'd think there would have been some sort of scientific study on this, being as how mice are usually the test subjects.
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