Tiny Feet Looking to Eat

Monday, I learned there was a mouse in my classroom. It shredded up some cough drop wrappers and devoured plastic and wax from a highlighter.

The cough drops I could see, but the highlighter gel? That stuff had to be poisonous! Or at least mildly carcinogenic! 

I removed all of the cough drops (and capped any remaining highlighters) and figured that was the end of it. Either the mouse would be dead, or it would move on because there wasn't any food.

I found out I was wrong after the snow days.

The mouse came back from some Pepto-Bismol! It shredded open a chamomile teabag, too!

The custodian handed me a glue trap. Kill traps are more humane, but it was what I had. I dropped the Pepto in the middle of the trap in case the mouse still had a stomachache and went home.

The highlighter must have mutated the mouse.

Friday morning, I found the glue trap. Half the contents of my drawer were stuck to it along with some fur, but there was a hole where the mouse chewed his way to freedom. There was no blood or sawed off feet.

I created a Teenage Mutant Ninja Mouse! It eats glue traps for a snack. What was in that highlighter!?

I found the entry point. There was a hole chewed through some insulation where the HDMI cords for the projector come in the room. A single mouse dingleberry confirmed my suspicions.

Of course, I told my students all about the mouse. I even projected the pictures you've seen and held up the empty glue trap (and I poked a highlighter pen threw the hole for dramatic effect!). Reactions were varied....especially when I said the name of whoever was sitting closest to the mouse!

If only everyone paid such rapt attention to congruence theories in triangles.

I couldn't do anything Friday, but I had a plan for Monday.

If I had duct tape, I could have tape the cords together and sealed the breach. I did have my mouse traps.

I brought a pair of traps to school. I offered to show kids how to set them and a few took me up on it! It was much more popular to put a pencil or something else in a trap I set (One pair of girls screamed).

I didn't trust the kids not to hurt themselves, so I didn't set a live trap until after they left Monday. Tuesday morning, I pulled it out before the arrived and repeated the process in the afternoon. 

Wednesday, I got a hit.

Some students get really creeped out when you tell them there's a mouse in the trash can. Others run right to it.

I asked the class to vote if they wanted to hear something gross, and most were all about it. Anyone who didn't want to know could get a quick drink of water.

Kill traps are blunt force instruments. They don't normally cause open wounds and bleeding. This mouse had a hole in it that almost looked like another mouse stumbled upon the corpse and turned it into a snack (Mice do cannibalize).

It was a good break from Geometry. I figured I'd tell the story to my B-Day classes, too.

I wasn't counting on catching another mouse Thursday morning.