Of Mice and Zen

My wife has inadvertently confirmed that we share our house not only with two cats but also with an unknown quantity of mice who are apparently having a fine time.

“Isn’t it the cats’ job to address that?” you might ask. But at their age, they’re basically retired.

So we've begun to look into professional services. We've found businesses offering promises of eradication for various costs (none cheap) by assorted means, chief among them traps and bait.

For “bait,” read “poison.” One business - - the most expensive, as it turns out -- spurns that chemical approach, which it says creates the potential for walls filled with decomposing rodents.

But among the “traps” that eco-friendly exterminator employs is something known as a glue board, which offers the potential for slow starvation. Not exactly the kind of entry we want included on our karmic permanent record.

Nonprofessional advice has included setting our own conventional, spring-loaded traps. Supposed advantage: a quick, merciful demise. Obvious disadvantage: need for mouse carcass disposal.

Other advice is for a live trap. Advantage: clean karmic record. Obvious disadvantage: need for live mouse disposal.

But we have no more inclination for the de-mousing job than our cats do.

Instead of any of this, we would like to hire a guy to come along with some sort of hypnotic flute and lure our small visitors to a sylvan wood where they could live out their days in harmony with nature.

Applications accepted.