Longtime readers may recall that awhile back I was plagued by mice. Well, that might be overstating it a bit. But I had a problem with mice, the worst of which were the ones that managed to get up onto my kitchen counter.

But for the past couple of years I’ve been mostly mouse free. Mostly, but not entirely.

Happily, they no longer get up onto my kitchen counter. At least I seem to have solved that particular problem.

I keep two or three mouse traps baited at all times, and roughly about every six months or so, I snare one.

The most recent one was caught in the trap underneath my kitchen sink.

I had completely forgotten that I kept a trap there, so it had been a long time since the last time I checked it. I simply noticed that there was a foul smell coming from beneath the sink. As that’s where I keep the trash can, I initially thought it was some morsel of food I had tossed that was rotting away, but when I checked the trash, there was nothing in there that could be causing the putrid stench.

That’s when I recalled the mouse trap.

Sure enough, there was a dead mouse in the trap.

No telling how long it had been there, but judging from the odor, it was more than a day or two.

Anyway, I threw the trap with its disagreeable contents into the trash can and took out the liner and tied it up. Then, as that wasn’t enough to get rid of the odor, I tossed the trash bag into the back yard with the intention of taking it to a public trash receptacle the following day during my early morning walk.

It should come as no surprise that I completely forgot about it by the following morning. You know, out of smell, out of mind.

It wasn’t until later in the day that I remembered the dead mouse in the trash bag.

And here’s the curious thing.

When I went out back to get it, it was no where to be found!

The trash bag and its contents had vanished.

Who or what could have taken it?

There is a wall with a locked door at the back of my property, so if it was a human who took it, he or she would have had to climb over that wall somehow.

And what sort of animal might have taken it? A squirrel or a bird would have pecked or gnawed at the bag to get to its contents. I can imagine a raccoon taking it; it was small enough for a raccoon to scurry away with it. But why? A feral cat? But they prefer to kill their own prey, don’t they?

I checked in the passageway behind the wall, and it isn’t there. Whoever or whatever took it, got clean away with it.

Well, it did save me a trip to a public trash receptacle.