Have a Heart

I entered the garage one morning late last week, heading for the driver's side of the minivan.  As I did, I heard a "crash" and saw, out of the corner of my eye, the box containing our Hav-A-Heart trap hurtling towards the ground, narrowly missing my head.

In case you don't know, a Hav-A-Heart trap is a cage designed to trap small rodents like mice, squirrels and bear in a humane manner, luring them in with the promise of food and snapping shut after they enter the cage.  When the animal has been trapped, one can choose to "relocate" them (in our case, we run them over to the yard of a neighbor we don't like in the dead of night).

We've had our failures with these traps in the past.  Once we placed peanut butter in the trap, hoping to entice inside for a snack the chipmunk or squirrel who was running sprints in our attic throughout the night.  The next day, when we checked the trap, the peanut butter was gone, but the rodent was nowhere to be seen.  (It had, however, left a note, asking for the chunky kind for its next meal).  We imagined it lying on its back somewhere, belching and pounding its paw-fist in hysterical laughter.

In the past week our cats have caught and slaughtered three mice in the house.  This is a disturbingly high number of kills and I suppose it's due to the construction taking place across the street.

Still, I think the rodents were sending me a warning this morning when the Hav-A-Heart trap so "mysteriously" tumbled down from the shelf high in the garage.  It was kind of like finding a newspaper full of fish on my front doorstep.  Like they were saying, "Get rid of the felines. Or else."

Threat? Or coincidence?  You be the judge.