The simplest mousetrap is the spring-loaded type I'm sure we're all familiar with. A small rectangle of wood, with a metal bar with is held in place by springs. The trap is set by pulling the snap bar back onto the other half of the trap, and using the attached securer bar to latch into the pressure plate, holding the snap bar back. When a mouse comes after the bait on the pressure foot, it'll nudge it enough to release the securer bar. SNAP! Ideally, it breaks the mouse's neck, killing it instantly, but some mice are stupid, and end up positioned incorrectly on the trap. Perhaps the most economical style of mousetrap, as it is usually cheap initial purchase, and can kill many mice.

Another type is the glue trap. No moving parts here, but it's not reusable. Basically a very sticky pad, in the tradition of Brer Rabbit. Mouse walks on, sticks to the glue pad. This is inherently a live catch type of trap. After a mouse becomes entrapped, the entire trap is thrown away, mouse and all.

Another type of trap has been developed, the live catch mechanical trap. Basically a scaled down version of larger live catch traps, it consists of a hollow rectangular prism with one end being a movable door. To set this type of trap, the door is pressed upwards against the top of the trap until it latches into place. Some sort of bait is placed at the back end of the trap, behind the pressure plate. A curious mouse walks in, goes for the bait, and the door drops down behind it. For those so inclined, the thusly caught mouse can be released in the wilderness, to be eaten by some predator or another. The trap could conceivably then be used again, or the trap could be discarded in the same fashion as the glue trap.

Though not truly a trap, mouse poison produced the same desired result, namely no mice. Usually made of arsenic or other toxic compound, the poison is produced in little pellets, and somehow flavored to be attractive to mice. The little rodents eat the poison, with predictable results.

The movie theatre where I work has mice.
There are traps everywhere.
And the other day, when I went to the stock room to get something, I discovered they added 'glue traps' to their method of dispatching the poor critters. With all the mice, the staff has traded mice-catching stories many times over. A fellow employee of mine had bad bad things to say about the glue trap... namely things like finding it covered in fur, and with a limb or two stuck in it, with no mouse....

ANYWAY!

So, upon discovering that they had laid glue traps, I shook my head and went about looking for a case of Gatorade.

But then I heard the squeaking.
At first I thought it was the heating vents... but then I saw the tiny tremble of the glue trap at my feet.
I picked it up and unlatched the top, to find a teeny tiny cute mouse with it's hind quarters glued to the trap. There was a ring of hair all around it, it's tiny body struggling to free itself. I put it down. I looked at it for a moment. Should I just ignore it and let the trap do it's work?

I went to the box office nearby to talk to the box and door person. They told me to get a manager, that they'd kill it. I frowned, and went back to the stock room. Looking back at the trap, I discovered another mouse, stuck in a classical spring mouse trap, who had been killed instantly. I looked at the quivering glue trap, and then at the still wood and metal contraption. I grabbed some cardboard and worked at freeing it's back legs. It's tail was the hardest to get out, but I finally did, and it was gone in the blink of an eye.

That night, we removed the glue trap from our apartment.

I respect all life. Nothing deserves that kind of death. I hope it learned, and warns all the other mice, and then they can all have quick deaths.

No one at my work knows.... And some day I will meet that mouse again, and then maybe it won't run away.

Mousetrap

Extreme improvisation challenge.

1. Set a field of live mousetraps on a stage.
2. Demonstrate to the audience, preferably with a carrot as an example, the startling and yet hilarious results which occur when the trap goes off. You're building tension here.
3. Blindfold two or more improvisers.
4. Set two other players or stagehands to watch the sidelines and to physically intervene should one of the blindfolded players wander off the stage.
5. Have the blindfolded improvisers remove their shoes.
6. Start the improv. Anything. Get a suggestion of where two people might meet. Or not. It really doesn't matter what the scene is about, because the audience won't be paying any attention to the narrative, or the emotional truth, or for that matter any clever jokes the improvisers might be making. The audience will be laughing like mad and screaming for blood.

Although familiar to many improv audiences from the live shows of Brad Sherwood and Colin Mochrie, who play an Alphabet Scene in a field of 100 live mousetraps, Sherwood credits TheatreSports with the game.

Sherwood, a former member of Los Angeles TheatreSports, likely learned the game from Dave Bushnell and Dan O'Connor. O'Connor saw the Three Canadians play the game as part of their busking at the Orlando Fringe Festival in 1994. At the same time, Paul Killam brought the game to San Francisco to Bay Area TheatreSports, where he and Bushnell introduced it to audiences (Killam had asked Derek Flores of the Canadians for permission to "steal" the game). Killam describes how it went over: "They howl and scream like NOTHING you've ever heard at an improv show... The audience reaction is NOT howls and screams of laughter. It is more akin to a roller coaster." Bushnell and O'Connor had played it in L.A. by 1996. O'Connor introduced the game to Ireland, and from San Francisco, Sean Hill brought the game to Austin, Texas's TheatreSports.

It's entirely possible, however, that the game is not a Canadian import at all, but something that Eric Amber picked up from other buskers in New Zealand and added to The Three Canadians repertoire.

Notes for improvisers:

1. The hindbrain exerts a powerful force. It will recoil from entering into situations which may cause physical pain, and makes it very difficult to perform a scene. You will have to will yourself to move out on that stage without your sight.
2. Speak first. Tell the other actor, "Come here. I need to see you."
3. If the other actor beats you to it, reply "Yes, sir, you're ready for your skipping practice, aren't you."
4. No, you can't lose a toe from this game.
5. Yes, it hurts like a motherfucker.
6. Walk with your toes up.
7. You're a jaguar. A kangaroo rat. A tightly wound spring. If something so much as breathes on your foot, jump straight up. And if you do get snapped, milk it. The audience will scream more. Bushnell would use the adrenaline rush of the pain to become more animated, and stomp around the stage, setting off more traps and more audience screams.
8. Move light and fast, but not too far too fast. You don't want to outwit the safety techs and walk off the stage.
9. It makes a great fundraiser for your troupe, if you start with a dozen mousetraps and then say, "for every dollar you contribute, we'll place another one on the stage."
10. This is common sense, but you don't open a show or come back from intermission with this scene. You've got to have the audience on your side already. You can't save a dying show with this gimmick. It is possible for this scene to come across as gratuitous and boring at the same time, when what you're aiming for is gratuitous and exciting.
11. Don't play it often. It loses its value seen too many times.
12. Oh, and if you actually were to avoid setting off any mousetraps, and be perfectly safe... your audience would be sorely disappointed.

Sources:
Tim Ereneta, Paul Killiam, Chris Vose, Barbara Scott, et al. "Mousetrap! (Three Canadians)" alt.comedy.improvisation. April 30, 1997.
Paul Killam. "Moustrap Game." alt.comedy.improvisation. January 20, 1999.
Dan O'Connor. "Mousetrap/Copyrights/Hero's Journey." alt.comedy.improvisation. January 19, 1999.
Brad Sherwood. Interview with Ben Kharakh. One Trick Pony. <http://onetrickpony.ws/brad_sherwood> (8 November 2005)