I was not taught how to set mouse traps or deal with rodent infestations in seminary. So, here is a helpful step-by-step guide for others who might find themselves in the same situation!
Step 1: Have your Board of Managers, Facilities and Finance Committee, or other church committee assemble Christmas gift bags for worthy individuals.
Step 2: Have the committee run into difficulty locating one of the intended recipients of the gift bag. Have them ask the minister if they can leave the gift bag in the minister’s office until they can locate the recipient. Place the bag in an out-of-the-way spot.
Step 3: Never manage to locate the gift bag recipient while simultaneously allowing the gift bag’s location to fade from memory. The goal is to forget the gift bag ever existed.
Step 4: Months later, have the minister do some tidying in the office and realized the gift bag is still there. Have the minister move the gift bag and realize that the entire bottom half of the back side has been chewed away.
Step 5: Observe that the mice have eaten the entire Christmas loaf, all of the shell chocolates, but only one single brandy bean.
Step 6: Remove the gift bag and replace with a mouse trap. Consider whether or not placing the trap in a gift bag would increase its effectiveness.
Step 7: Kill your first mouse. Have a crisis of conscience: Mice are God’s creatures, too. There is the beloved image of the church mice to consider. Think of the church mice from Disney’s “Robin Hood” film and become sad.
Step 8: Take to respectfully shrouding the dead mice in Kleenex and Scotch tape. Place them in your cold garage to await ultimate disposal.
Step 9: After the fourth mouse, take less time with the shrouding and disposing.
Step 10: By the eighth mouse, become completely desensitised to mouse death.
Optional: Give the cold, shrouded mouse bodies to a congregation member to feed to their son’s pet snake. Snakes are God’s creatures, too.
Have you had any rodent issues in your house or at your church?
Grace and Peace,
Susan
Dear Susan, while I worked at the library we once trapped a live mouse on my desk behind my monitor while the public was in the library. Very carefully we scooped it into a paper bag and removed it to the lane way behind the library where we released it. Immediately it made a beeline for the warmth of the library with two librarians in hot pursuit!!
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