You don't "trap" the mouse so much as provide it an ironic race car so amazing and effective it will simply not want to leave the "driver's seat."
I will return to this...topic?...a little later...
People often ask: "Is it weird living in Bahrain?" or "It must be so different there!"
Well, let me tell you what I tell them:
"Nope."
Bahrain is a lovely place, albeit where I am is kind of...I don't want to say the middle of nowhere but...
Actually I am just above the middle...
Where I live is great for a family or someone who doesn't want to deal with the traffic and possible delays from whatever whatever you may encounter in the city up North. There is a mall or two, a great souk, and it offers people a place to kind of just...relax.
Which is great. Relaxing has its time and place, and during the week I usually revel in the few short hours I get to just detox from a long day. However, cabin fever is a thing.
You know, where you kind of pace around and stare out the window like this:
IS THAT A CAR? WHERE ARE THEY GOING? CAN YOU TAKE ME WITH YOU!?
So is Bahrain different? A little, but Wisconsin is different than Montana as well. I can get almost anything I want, or something similar almost every time. If I want name brand I can get it - I will pay more, but I can get it. I can get exotic foods and spices I couldn't get at home. I can go to restaurants that serve the most delicious blended menus. I can have those same places bring it straight to my door often.
Bahrain is, in some ways, actually very amazing.
But one thing I have noticed that is good about Bahrain is now what is bad about Bahrain...
There isn't a mouse problem.
Seriously...you can leave food out and you might get a few ants, but not a mouse shall be in thy house.
And this makes sense, hard to drill a mouse hole into a concrete wall with just your mouse teeth.
Not really a lot of places to live, and the stray cats will probably pick off any mouse who tries to venture out.
So why is this a bad thing for me?
Clever little bastards...
It turns out I need some mousetraps.
Not a big deal back home...you just go to your local (insert name of massive chain here or local store or newspaper box or random trashcan) and pick up two dozen for a wooden nickel. Easy as 3.14159, right?
Well, here there are not many mice. Therefore there are not many means of trapping them. Therefore I can't buy a trap. A slippery slope, indeed.
I don't want to trap mice and snap their adorable little necks or anything. If there is one in my house I will try to find a humane way of getting it out.
Like moving away, for instance.
Or throwing a party and the first person to catch the mouse will get a hilarious nickname.
I got ideas for nicknames.
Good ideas.
But there is no mouse in my house.
There are no mice to be found.
So if you actually did go out and build a better mouse trap here...no one would buy it.
I know you want to try this now...
So what am I doing with these traps, if not trying to wipe out the nearly non-existant critter they were meant to destroy?
Well, I will give you a hint...it is a car.
So far, one of the most vivid times I realize I am in a whole new woooooooorrrrllllddd...
Is that song stuck in your head now? You're welcome...
And here ya go, this will satisfy your need to hear it now:
Ah sooooo....
Where was I?
Let me see...mice, cats, no mice, cars, Aladdin in Japanese...oh yeah!
One of the times I truly realize I am in a whole new...country...is when I announce a project to my engineering class. It is made up of some good students from the 9th and 10th grades.
After we finished our last project on Green and Sustainable Architecture, I announced at the end of that class our next project:
Mousetrap Cars
Now, where I come from I would bet most kids have built one in school. Some several times in several grades. Last year I had to alter the project a large amount because this was the 4th time in school - since grade 6, which was only 5 years prior - they had been asked to build one.
But here...
This is the 4th project that I dug up from my years of teaching that I rarely use anymore. I don't use them anymore because they are kind of played out where I come from.
Tallest tower project?
Meh.
Bridges made of toothpicks and paper rolls that can hold dozens of kilograms/pounds?
Yawn.
A car made from a mousetrap that can drive for dozens of meters : over a hundred feet?
BOOOORING!
I mean, back in the US they have many pre-made kits you can even buy. There are websites deicated to this project. Hundreds of them.
NASA even got involved.
Usually you have to supply the parts and creativity yourself, but it is so over-done in the US that we can just forget all of that and spend $12.95 on Amazon and it will be at your door in 2 days.
But when I announce it here, it is brand new. These kids will have to make theirs from complete scratch.
Hell, I don't even know if they know what a CD looks like, let alone that it can be a wheel on a car powered by a mousetrap. I am looking forward to what they will come up with.
I want to see creativity that can only come from the first time imagining something...like this:
or this:
Or even this:
But mostly, when dealing with a bunch of teenagers who have never used a mousetrap before, I am really, REALLY looking forward to a whole lot of this:
The toughest part of my job is keeping a straight face, mostly...
The new, well, "newness" has totally revived the joy I had when I did these for the first time as a student, and when I presented them to my first round of students. The same joy that you lose when students aren't as excited anymore about these projects - because the push now in the US is ALL PROJECTS ALL THE TIME so what I used to do with my students in High School has been taken and adapted by the middle and even younger grades. So when they get to me, the project has been borrowed and done so many times they are over it.
It is an amazing amount of work trying to design a completely new project.
But here I get to bring back all my old friends and breathe some fresh air into them. It is pretty cool.
But, I may have promised them mousetrap cars without considering the lack of mice good thing/bad thing that Bahrain has...
THAT'S RIGHT I AM TALKING ABOUT YOU! I MEAN AWWWWWWWW.
So now the hunt is on.
Not for mice - because if the hunt were on for mice there would already be traps to catch them, see?
The hunt is on for the traps to catch them even though there aren't that many them to catch.
Clear?
I have seen mouse sticky paper and even a mouse spray - but I haven't yet figured out how to propel these cars via poison gel spray just yet.
Yet...
So while you are living your life and enjoy all the comforts of your mouse-infested country, just remember there is someone over here who misses home right now...
Because Amazon is having a sale on Pet Supplies and I can't take advantage of that!
WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOUR PET!? JUST MAIL HIM HERE!
And here is a mousetrap car video in case you really want to see the pure excitement this project brings...
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