DURING MY LIFE-TIME, mice often have terrorized me.
Dead or alive, they seem intent on imprinting frightening moments upon my psyche.
I suppose if you are not afraid of rodents, then you would not remember the dead mouse floating in a crockpot, the mouse running in circles around your feet in a locked bathroom, a mouse rummaging in a silverware drawer and other such encounters.
But I have experienced all of the above mouse moments, and more.
Therefore, you can understand why I react rather negatively to anything rodent-related.
My most recent mouse story comes from Walmart in Faribault, where my husband went to the garden section for a bag of charcoal while I shopped elsewhere in this sprawling store.
Later we meet and I note that he has selected a rather small (7.2 pound) bag of charcoal.
Well, he tells me, the two larger bags in the remaining inventory had been chewed on by mice.
I don’t understand. As far as I know, mice don’t eat charcoal, preferring instead watered-down chicken broth in a crockpot or peanut butter on a trap.
Uncertain whether to believe Randy, I think that perhaps the errant prongs of a forklift pierced the charcoal bags.
Nope, he saw the tell-tale mouse droppings and urine on the paper-lined pallet. Mice, he says, will chew on a bag to gather paper for a nest. Oh, great, more mice.
This all leads me to wonder how warehouses, trucks that transport goods or businesses keep rodents away. It’s a question I’ve pondered previously, but which now weighs heavy on my mind.
After all, if I’m going to “save money” and “live better,” I can’t accomplish that by shopping at a store that possibly harbors mice or, at the least, their droppings.
© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
I keep noticing mousetraps at work, which really bother me. Not only are they all over the place on my floor; they’ve all been tripped. I prefer to pretend mice don’t exist. I don’t want the constant reminder!
I hear you, Kristin. I too dislike mousetraps because they are a constant reminder of MICE! And if the traps are tripped, well, that’s even worse because then I know one is on the lose. I remind my husband not to tell me if a trap has been sprung. We have two traps permanently set in our basement.
What’s even worse–me discovering a sprung trap or a dead mouse. We even caught a vole or a shrew a few weeks ago in our laundry room. Needless to say, the laundry did not get done until my husband arrived home from work and got rid of the creature I couldn’t identify from a distance.
Maybe suggest an office cat for your work place.