January 8, 2006
"I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house."
Mouse gets back at man. The house is completely destroyed. The man sounds awfully sadistic, but perhaps you'll be less judgmental knowing that he's very old. (81.) The story is a lot like that one about the squirrel, you know, just about the funniest thing ever on "This American Life."
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13 comments:
It's your worst skwerl nightmare!
Hilarious.
However, Scott, justice was not done.
Losing your home is adequate justice for burning a mouse???
Yes, this is a very fishy story. A man is burning leaves very near his house in the middle of a horrible drought? I wonder if he'll get an insurance payment for this -- it sounds like arson.
Scott:
I have to disagree with you. He was trying to kill a pest. That by itself doesn't qualify one as being a 'sadistic arsehole.'
Mice are a pest, no different than flies, snakes, barn swallows, gophers or mosquitoes.
Yeah, burning it is sort of a weird way to get rid of it, but if you have a handful of burning leaves and then see the mouse in front of you, then it seems like a logical strategy.
And I'm not sure it's any more sadistic than a cat having one claw out and slicing it apart a piece at a time for hours, or people putting poison out that causes the mouse's nervous system to shut down until it is paralyzed and can't breathe, or mousetraps (which don't always kill cleanly, by the way-- I distinctly remember that we had a housemaid, and if she found a mouse that was not yet dead in a mousetrap, she would dump it on the ground, carefully put her shoe right on it and then lean forward with all her weight on that foot.)
I mean, it would be nice if you could just zap it with something and say, 'bang, you're dead,' but that something would be a gun, and the chances are if he had a gun and fired it in a residential area, he'd be arrested.
I only think it qualifies as sadistic if he is doing it for pleasure, or intentionally inflicting more pain or dragging things out more than is necessary to kill it.
But the idea that people just never have a legitimate reason to kill animals, while perhaps quaint, is not realistic.
Those who find justice in this story likely would also enjoy the movie Mouse Hunt.
"Yeah, burning it is sort of a weird way to get rid of it, but if you have a handful of burning leaves and then see the mouse in front of you, then it seems like a logical strategy."
You have got to be kidding me. Wouldn't the logical thing be to just realize it outside?
I meant to say "release" it outside
In my own mouse war, they infiltrated my house causing over $1000 in damage by eating the wires in my washing machine which caused it to overflow (three times). We finally had to duct tape every possible opening in the machine and close off every entry into the house, repair the machine (three times) and replace lots of flooring. Big bucks. I called in the bug man and said, have at the little buggers.
Rule #1 when trying to get rid of mice:
Close the door behind you.
Dexter:
re-read this line of my comment:
I only think it qualifies as sadistic if he is doing it for pleasure, or intentionally inflicting more pain or dragging things out more than is necessary to kill it.
Pulling the wings off flies is sadistic. Swatting them with a fly swatter is not.
esk:
Mice come inside, especially in winter. We've always had cats who were pretty good mousers, but if you don't have one then you have to do something. I'm still not convinced he wasn't just trying to get rid of a pest. Clearly not in a way that worked, but if he'd, for example, killed it with the rake would you have a problem with that?
A little local flavor. Many rodents in New Mexico carry hanta virus, a very serious and sometimes fatal disease, especially among the elderly.
Eli - A rake has the "potential" of being much more swift. Throwing it in a fire just seems rather barbaric to me.
(mind you - i would have preferred he just release it)
Dexter said...
Doubtful – the whole story.
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