Shopping Charicatures

Did you ever have one of those silly moments of humor while shopping?  Trying to be domestically responsible at home always brings me to film classics like Mister Mom with Michael Keaton.

I spotted this at Home Depot and did a double take before enjoying a chuckle.  The hardware and handyman types probably don't notice.  I thought "strippers" was out of place. What?

Well, I'll just go looking for my light bulbs and bug spray and go about my business.  Speaking of hardware stores, I had an interesting learning experience with my daughters.

We had a mouse problem in our home.  While shopping for a possible solution, I found myself explaining to a four and six year old what I was looking for, and what it would do.  There were the poisons, the spring traps... not the gruesome details, but thoughtfully, I found myself explaining that these traps would end the life of these rodents.

I know what you're thinking.  These are pests, and they must be abated before they overrun our home.  For my children, there was no difference between a furry puppy, a fiesty pony or a group of nesting mice.

We however, already had a plan.  In the last home we lived in, mice from the fields came into our kitchen through the sliding patio door.  The tiny rodents weren't even camping out, they got trapped when we shut the door behind them.  Chasing them with a broom only sent them scurrying elsewhere into the apartment.

Our choice, was "catch and release".  We would trap them and carry them away somewhere else, perhaps further back to their home in the wild fields.  What we got was slightly more expensive than a disposable, conventional trap.  This one we found online because the concept was not a popular one at the hardware stores on the island.

Mouse Cage Trap

A hardware store is an unusual place for an ecology lesson, but that was where other stories began.  After so many bedtime stories of little talking mice with families and personalities and friends, a piece of the real world pierces through but still meets with a gentle, alternative ending.

One afternoon, I heard the door clink shut and I called them over to check it out.  After watching the mice we trapped for a few minutes, the girls followed me on a short walk from our house on the roadside.  There they helped me find a suitable place to set our "lost" visitors free.

Shopping, with good judgement has lessons for all.