I'm pretty sure that everyone who met our cat Laila liked her. After all, she was friendly and entertaining. The only living creatures that are celebrating her demise are the mice that live in our building.
We currently have at least two mice spending time in our apartment: one that runs like it's drunk, and one that runs normally. I occasionally see them scuttling between the coat closet and the kitchen, usually making a beeline to go under the oven. (I guess the silver lining here is that I haven't found them elsewhere in the apartment?). I'm sure they would have already met a brutal end if Laila were still with us, but in the absence of an accomplished hunter, I had to take steps on my own. I ordered a couple of those humane traps from Amazon--the kind where you put in some food for bait, they run in, and a door closes behind them. Then, I guess the idea is that you can take them outside, where they can freeze to death, be run over by a car, or get eaten by a wild animal instead of someone's indoor pet.
Except that in this case, they're not taking the bait. Per the instructions on the trap box, I put in a blob of perfectly good peanut butter (which may or may not be rancid after having spent several weeks in the trap), but they are not even remotely interested. I've tried to angle the trap to match their trajectory between the coat closet and the oven, but at least three times now, I've seen them actually run around the trap to avoid it. Are these battle-scarred mice who were previously humanely trapped, taken outside, and made their way back into the building? Or mice with genius-level IQ? We'll never know...
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