212. ...I will not be killing mice.

(reminiscing)

Jan 22, 2026

Liz asked if anyone could lend her a humane mousetrap. Our mouse management system, in this tenement flat, 100 years older than me, is a cat. We’ve leant her out in the past but Liz has a dog and those two don’t mix so well.

I wonder whether I could make a living as a dark web booking agent lining up jobs for a feline contract killer. Black suit and a black cat carrier. Maybe I’d fit a remote controlled roller shutter to the front of it for the ominous vibes. Little dry ice jets squirting out clouds of mystery.

Tonight Matthew (or Liz) I will be killing mice.

That’s a Stars In Their Eyes, Matthew Kelly, telly talent show reference. It makes sense if you’re middle aged. Might not track so well for younger readers. It’s ok. We’re done with that now. I’ll not leave anyone behind.

I will not be killing mice.

These days we outsource our rodent control to a tortoise shell assassin but once, a long, long time ago I caught a mouse house intruder using only guile and wit. Or luck and madness. Let’s say guile and wit. Guile and wit and a list of readily available household items.

Here’s how I went about it. A recipe for catching a mouse. You’ll need -

Ingredients:

1 mouse

1 tube of Bonjela gum cream

1 shortbread tin

1 BIC biro (must have lid/cap)

1 belt with buckle

1 Rizla paper

1 tab of LSD

6/7 pillows or cushions

Method:

Take a tab of LSD.
Allow multiple hours to pass.
Notice the mouse.
Hide in a fort constructed from cushions and pillows.
realise you can’t live like this forever.
Creep out.
Smear Bonjela onto a Rizla paper and place it on the floor, one belt-length from the pillow fort.
Cover the Bonjela-smeared Rizla with an upturned shortbread tin.
Extend the belt from the pillow fort so the buckle lies on the floor beside the edge of the tin.
Bend the shirt-pocket clip of the BIC biro lid so it sticks out at 90°.
Place the nib of the biro into the belt buckle, lift the edge of the tin, and rest it on the protruding clip.
This creates a classic deadfall trap, as seen in wilderness survival manuals and Road Runner cartoons.
Retire to your pillow fort sanctuary and wait silently for your quarry.
Waiting times can vary.
Ruminate on the abstract nature of time.
Consider how the mouse experiences the continuous and sequential ordering of events.
A mouse heart weighs about 0.1 - 0.2 grams.
A human heart weighs around 300 grams.
A resting mouse heart beats at roughly 500 - 700 beats per minute.
A resting human heart beats at roughly 60–80 beats per minute.
Over a lifetime, both hearts will beat in the region of 2–3 billion times. The mouse fits those beats into two or three years. We spread them thinly across eight or nine decades.
Mice live quicker than us.
Do we think in our bodies?
Does my heart know it’s beating?
Is my heart beating?
I feel light.
Am I floating?
The belt stretches into the distance held aloft above the carpet’s myriad and miniscule wooly fingers.
A straight line.
A timeline.
Here is now.
Here is later.
Up is down, down is up etc.
Etc. I et cetra.
What is cetra?
What does cetra taste like?
When did I last eat?
Eat cetera
Am I full?
Am I a fool?
Alone on a hill of pillows.
My eyes are climbing, hauling attention from punched belt hole to punch belt hole.
Can moments accumulate?
The belt buckle waits, heavy and inevitable beneath the rim of a distant metallic, tartan event horizon.
Silver metal sky.
Pull the belt and the future collapses into the present.
Don’t pull and time just keeps happening on its own.
The mouse will cross that line at some point.
Or it won’t.
The belt does not care.
When the mouse, inexorably drawn by the irresistible, medicinal pungency of Bonjela, enters the trap, pull the belt, collapse time, and dive from behind the pillow ramparts.
Press your belly down hard over the tin to prevent escape.
Give the mouse time to settle then swap your belly weight for Emma’s doc martin boot or similar.
Run/wobble to the kitchen.
Spread the entire contents of a Rice Krispies box evenly over the kitchen table.
Splay open the Rice Krispies box by carefully, REALLY CAREFULLY undoing its glued edges.
Return to the shortbread tin and slide the flattened Rice Krispies box under.
Hold the cardboard in place and gently flip the tin.
Place the tin’s lid over the cardboard and in one quick movement wheech the cardboard out.

You have trapped a mouse.

Obviously now you have a problem. You’ve caught a tiger by the tail.

You can freestyle disposal but my apporach worked and if you’re following along so far you might want to go this route -

Collect half a loaf of bread from the kitchen, take the shortbread tin containing the mouse and go to your nearest park. Edinburgh’s Harrison Park has been proven to work for mouse disposal in limited real world testing.

Place the shortbread tin in the approximate centre of the park. Surround with bread crumbs. Discard clothes and dance naked in a circle around the shortbread tin.

The combination of bread crumbs and naked dancing confuses the mouse. Once disoriented the mouse is less likely to follow you as you streak homeward, naked, through the streets of Edinburgh.

Simple enough.

Thanks for reading. I think posts like this happen because I imagine, or in this case remember, a complicated event and wonder whether I have writing chops enough to convey the intricacies of the experience. I don’t know whether I succeeded this time. Or ever?

The setup looked like this…

A detailed schematic of Paul Lambie's Mousetrap — Paul Lambie’s Bonjela baited mousetrap usiing Walkers Shortbread tin for containment. Belt and BIC biro as trigger.

Is that anywhere close to the mental picture my writing evoked? Did I convey the concept? Obviously some of us don’t make mental pictures and that first question is somewhat moot.

I’m having a hard time trying to find a job right now. Should this be on my CV? I also invented Just Eat and the Selfie Stick should I write about that? Life is complicated right? The rules seem muddled and I’m not sure I really understand what people are looking for.

The Variable Frequency Lambie

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