Will St. Pete forget that "other" stuff?

since I did a sorta good deed?

A couple of weeks ago I entered our laundry room in the basement and saw something small move near some shelves. There it was, a good-sized mouse. He took off before I could catch him.

So, I'm thinking "Oh crap! How did s/he get in here?" There's no entryway from the outside to our basement, so we think he either came in through the new laundry vent somehow or through the hole where the satellite cable comes in, with the former being much more likely.

We go to Home Depot and look at our options. Most of which are unappealing, they either require poison, which wouldn't be good because my son or dog might get into it, and besides, what if the thing dies somewhere we can't get to it? Or worse, if we can reach it, it would just be a nasty thing to have to deal with.

Then there were your traditional mouse traps. Again, the nasty factor made these unappealing. Just eeeewwwwww. I have a bad thing about dead mice because once I was working on the interior of an old house and we were taking down cieling tiles and three very old dead mice fell on my head, kinda freaked me out.

Besides, I don't really want to kill this thing, I just want him out of my house. So, thinking there may be no other way, I happened to notice they had live traps. You put peanut butter in the end and when the mouse goes to get it, it moves the trap enough to close the door. I had no idea if it would work or not, but it was worth a shot.

Well, It only took two days and we bagged him! Funny thing was, I took him out to the woods to release him, but he didn't want to go. I carefully opened the door, hoping he wouldn't come out fighting. I gave it a little shake, no mouse. I shake a little harder and tilt the trap almost vertically, no mouse. I'm thinking, it will be really embarassing to go home and tell Mrs. Dave I thought we had it, but we didn't. But I shine the flashlight in there, and sure enough, he's in there, just hanging on for dear life. I gave one more good shake and he finally popped out.

I hope I haven't made him easy prey for a wandering fox or something, because he's covered in peanut butter. But, he looked at me, probably scared to death, or just blinded by the flashlight. He was all wet, not sure why, but after he got his bearings, he hauled ass. What really surprised me was he was jumping about 2 feet at a time. Boing, Boing, Boing and he was halfway into the woods.

So, do you think St. Pete will forget about stuff like Spring Break 1992 or my buddy's bachelor party or the "incident" at the Hustler Club in New Orleans? Does being kind to God's creatures (so what if we've been nuking some ants in our kitchen!) get you out of purgatory?

Dave