I cannot tell you why I remembered this today, nor can I tell you why I'm compelled to write about it. I ate chicken wings very late last night, that could be it, or perhaps the onset of a neurological disorder? Oh the things I'm willing to do in the name of content! Anyway...There were many mice living between the walls of my first apartment. The beautifully converted attic was spotless but I lived right next to a rather large vegetable garden and the legion of vermin it hosted tended to be a rambling bunch. I stuffed as many holes as I could find and wound up keeping everything but canned food in the fridge but in the end I had to resort to traps. As the picture above attests they're rather cute but the even sound of them scrabbling away in the dead of night can make you feel unclean.
One trap in particular was noteworthy: It would go off reliably every few days and after a couple months this thing looked like it belonged in a horror movie. Blood had soaked into all of the wooden base and the killing bar was crusty with whatever you might find in a rodent's skull in addition to bits of bone and fur. You might think that any sensible rodent would have nothing to do with what was clearly the Auschwitz of mouse traps but sadly no; in exchange for a spot of cheese they would merrily place their fuzzy little heads into the merciless jaws of what became known as Old Gruesome.
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To replace Gruesome with something less monstrous - and in retrospect more sanitary - would have set me back a mere two dollars but the whole project entered a weird place somewhere between a high art and a fraternity dare. As the trap became positively gunky and could boast ending the lives of over fifty mice it eventually snapped its way into my heart, much like the favourite club of a seal hunter.
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As all evil eventually consumes itself the trap broke; its' powerful spring had been coated with enough blood to rust it through and it snapped into pieces. Old Gruesome's final victim did not fare much better and I finally threw both of them in the trash; victor and victim, embracing for all eternity, buried deep in the bowels of some nameless landfill.
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There were other mousetraps but like a grown man landing his first sucker-punch it just wasn't the same. Lesser traps lacked one-tenth of their predecessor's stamina and broke regularly, which led me to believe that Gruesome gained some measure of vitality through its' many acts of murder. If an argument can be made that mice have souls then I'm certain Old Gruesome hungered for them.
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I miss him still...
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In hopes of not completely wasting your time with this post I am submitting an article that talks about an artificial eye complete with a hook-up to your brain. They claim this technology might be implanted into your head in about five years. It would be so cool to look deeply into your lovers eyes and see NIKON in tiny letters around the iris. I'm pretty sure that as soon as I'm able to start replacing my perfectly working parts in favour of bionic I will. I've got two words for you... TELESCOPIC NIGHT VISION. Yeah, I know. Don't worry, I'll save a space for you in line at the doctor's office.
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Wait, oh sorry. That was three words.
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