Mouse.

Submitted by my grandpa, Forrest MacDonald:

Mice in the pantry aren't really too big a deal, unless they're scampering over your face when you are in bed for the night... such as they did for 1st Lts. Ernie Gibson & Forrest MacDonald on their first night of detached duty in their pyramidal tent on the shore of Ishikawa Bay, Okinawa in September of 1945. Except that the rodents were rats, not mice!

Solution -- for that night -- put up our mosquito netting. Gibby and I were there for four or five days, for some odds and ends of engineering activities, with the primary mission being to level -- blow up, or otherwise bring to the ground by the use of dynamite -- an 80- or 90-foot-tall by 8- to 10-foot base diameter brick smoke stack right in the middle of the village.

So we had to get rid of our resident rat. We suspected there was only one that was bothering us, with the main population staying up in the tops of the tall palm trees. Our solution:

We had a wooden box about 2 feet cubed, with one entire side as a door sliding between two guiding rails. The box's immediate previous use was as a repository for ice and beer.

The box was placed on its side and positioned with the door at one end so it slid up and down.

We made a see-saw from a scrap of wood about one foot long and 3 inches wide placed on a narrow-topped fulcrum about 2-3 inches high.

We embedded a twin-edged razor blade (long edge longitudinally under one end of the see-saw.)

We put bait (probably cheese from our K-rations) on the top of the see-saw close to the business (razor blade) end.

We placed see-saw on floor in center of box and delicately balanced it so that low end is toward the door.

We anchored one end of a long piece of string on one side (interior) of the box opposite the business end, and ran it through a loop (hook-eye) on other side of box, thence back out the open door and up the front of door, over the top of door, and anchored to top of box so that the string now supports the door in an up position, holding the door about 3 inches above the floor level.

We fine-tuned the position of the see-saw with relation to the string running across the box. Razor to be positioned so it slices thru string rather than coming down at a 90 degree angle on it.

HOW DOES IT WORK? You're ahead of me already, aren't you? Mouse goes up ramp to food; platform goes down due to weight of mouse; razor cuts string; door drops down, and you've got him/her!

Very simple! 100% guaranteed! Note the following operational statistics:

# Of Times Used - 1
# Of Kills - 1
Efficiency Rating - 100%

We also designed an Audio Warning System:

Suspended our two aluminum mess-kits from a common point in the upper framework of our tent on about 3-ft. long strings.
Ran another string anchored on the lower outside of the box so that another razor blade positioned on the side of the door near the bottom would cut this string as the door dropped down.
Other end of this string up to the upper supporting structuretied thru a hook-eye or over a nail and tied to the handle of mess-kit after it was swung upward thru an arc of 90 degrees from its vertical position.

What a racket that system made when it went off about 15 minutes after we turned off the lights that night!!!

Disposal system, you might ask! Next morning, a good long shot from our G.I. (Government Issue) bug bombs (the original forerunner of all of the spray cans that are in use today). Slowed him down so we could reach in with a pair of pliers to grab him by the tail, and then the use of a hunting knife for the coup-de-grace. Thence to the trash can.

Other thoughts for you to opt from, for your disposal problem:

Another compartment immediately next to the mouse room with a spring loaded door triggered open by the fall of the mouse room door. This compartment to contain either, A) your hungry family cat, or B) your hungry family snake. I recommend B -- no bones to clean out in the morning.

You're on your own now, Ariel. I've just run out of time. Certainly not out of ideas.

Thanks, Grandpa. That's a lot of detail to remember from a contraption built over 50 years ago. I'm happy to report that the 49-cent mouse traps from the supermarket work almost as well, and they don't require an engineering degree to set up!

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