‘Excuse me, I’m looking for something to catch a mouse that won’t cause it any distress,’ said the young chap who had walked into the hardware cabin at the farm shop with his girlfriend.
The pair of them had briefly perused the shelves where the well assorted pest control items were neatly stacked and, not seeing what it was they were looking for, they had approached the counter where the owner and I were having a chat.
We were setting the world to rights, as usual, as he put through a bottle of floor cleaner for me, and we had come to the conclusion we always do, which was that we wanted to get away from it, whatever it was. But even if we knew what it was, where should we go to get away from it? Right on cue, the voice of today spoke to clarify at least half of this conundrum.
‘Excuse me,’ said the young lad, ‘I’m looking for something to catch a mouse that won’t cause it any distress.’
The boy wandered back to the counter with a small mouse-trapping container he was holding in the air
The hardware store manager, not normally the sort to be thrown by awkward requests, said: ‘You mean you want a live trap?’ The lad squirmed. His girlfriend appeared to swoon, then staggered from the shop as though about to faint. The boy said: ‘No. I want something that won’t distress the mouse.’
‘Look, there are two types of mouse trap,’ said the hardware manager. ‘One kills the mouse, the other traps it alive so you can release it. You want the live trap?’
The girlfriend was wandering across the car park with a glazed look on her face. Possibly she was going to keep walking until she reached Islington, where everything would no doubt be better for her.
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