I Hate Meeces to Pieces!

Lying on my tummy in front if the old black and white TV set on Saturday mornings watching all the Hanna/Barbera cartoons in the first years of the LBJ administration; I learned early in life from Mr. Jinx the Cat to "hate meeces to pieces!".  Of course the object of Mr. Jinx's diatribe were two adorable cartoon "meeces" by the names of Pixie and Dixie.

I had not given Mr. Jinx the Cat much thought over the past 50 years, but the phrase, "I hate meeces to pieces!" recently drifted to the fore of my cerebellum and I again realized how much wisdom was gained from early 1960's TV. 

Last year I chronicled on this blog the adventure with the "Christmas Mouse".  Actually there were a couple of Christmeece meeses - all eventually dispatched, or so I had convinced myself.

With the coming of Autumn, our home has in years past (and once again) seemed to invite the coming of field mice into the interior of our walls, under the kitchen cabinets, scrounging in the pantry and scratching above the master bath.  Minx the Wife says to me, "We [you] have to do something about these mice! I can smell them in the kitchen, especially after we run the dishwasher.  It is disgusting and we [you] need to get this cleaned up before Thanksgiving. I hate meeces to pieces!"  In her tracking of the minuscule rodents, she pulled the chest of drawers away from the wall in the dining nook and exclaimed. "Well, well, well!  Lookie here.  Mark, come see this."  From Saturday morning cartoons, I knew that mice (Tom & Jerry, Pixie & Dixie, Itchy & Scratchy, Mighty Mouse et al) always lived in the interior of the wall and the mouse hole entrances are always an inverted U-shaped hole in the base board.  And what the wife found was a gnawed inverted U-shaped hole in the drywall just above the base board behind the chest of drawers.  I rebaited my 5 mouse traps and caught a mouse a day for 4 days straight, and I lost count of how many I had trapped in the preceding weeks, maybe 3 or 4.  

With the discovery of rodent entry point, like Quick-Draw MacGraw, I was going to head them meeces off at the pass.  Into the breach I tossed a tablespoon of Hungarian Paprika (if garlic works for Romanian vampires, maybe paprika will work for mice - can't hurt), then I squeezed a half tube of caulk into the void.  The next evening Minx the Wife tells me again, "I hate meeces to pieces" as she points out a gnawed hole in the bathroom ceiling at the top of the wall.  I pump in more caulk to seal that hole. 

I now have removed the toe boards from under the kitchen cabinets, and so Sue can do lots of cleaning and astringent cleansing of this now reeking hidey-hole under the kitchen sink.  A dirty job she will tackle on her day off of work.  I hate meeces to pieces!

In lieu of getting a cat in case the house gets overrun with meeces, I am hoping a corn snake might apply for a position at our house; free room and board with all the mice he can eat.  
Because, corn snakes love meeces to pieces!