The Different Story of the Mouse and the Trap

The old woman who owned the house kept her butter and cheese in a cellar she had built in a corner of the big house, which was a treasure for her and she doted on it.

In time, rats infested the place and they made a hole in the cellar at the weakest point.

As the woman closed the hole, the mice made new holes from the side of the hole, from the corner to the side.

So the hole got bigger and bigger and more difficult to close, and many mice could pass through at once.

Finally the woman took a trap, put cheese on it and placed it at the mouth of the hole.

The next one fell into the trap because they had never met a trap before.

The trap clicked as each one attacked the smell of the cheese.

Some nights the number increased considerably.

One day, a new mouse came to this house, a full-grown mouse, and everyone respected it.

Now the mice in this house had a chief who opened every door, or at least that was the atmosphere.

The chief didn't listen to traps, he would open the way to the cellar and that was nothing to him.

All the mice mixed cheese and butter together and ate them before the path to the cellar was even opened, fighting among themselves over what was yours and what was mine, even though there was nothing there yet.

They gave the chief directions to the cellar, told him how to get there, which roads to take, which way the hole was, and so on.

The other mice drooled as the chef told them what he could do during the nightly friendly chats.

Everyone was impatient, waiting for the chief to make his move.

The chief was trying to get to know his surroundings a little better and was exploring accordingly.

But he was under pressure, he couldn't take it any longer, he had to act.

Early one evening preparations were made and they decided to raid the woman's pantry like forty thieves.

They set off, led by the chief, a scaled-up mouse, and made their way swiftly through the twisting holes towards the smell of cheese.

Just as they got to the front of the hole, the chef put the brakes on the pilfering, and the rearguard patched up the chef's ass.

They collapsed there, but they couldn't understand what had happened.

It was very different before, the first mouse would pull the pin on the trap and the others would run through.

Each time it cost a life, but the herd survived.

Not this time, the head mouse didn't throw himself on the grenade like a suicide commando.

He smelled the cheese, but he also recognized the trap.

He looked around and saw mouse heads, bones, severed tails, etc. He said, "Are we in hell or what?

The others were curiously pressing him from behind.

The chief mouse said look, there is a trap here.

They said there always has been.

And you didn't see this?

Of course, it was there every time we came.

How did you get to the butter and cheese bypassing it?

I swear, we were just hopping around and nothing was happening.

The chief mouse was quick to understand and immediately left the place and explained the situation to those who stayed behind.

How did you disarm that trap on your way to the cellar?

What trap, chief, that trap was always there and we were just stepping on it.

The chief was puzzled, he said, this is a trap, heads, tails and bones are all around and they are not aware of the situation.

He asked about the missing among them, there were some who had left and never returned.

Many of them had orphaned their young and found foster parents to raise them, but since the woman discovered the trap, many had disappeared and never returned.

When the chief mouse escaped from the cellar, the others wondered.

They whispered among themselves, wondering what the chief had seen.

They thought the chief was going to break the trap and attack the cellar directly.

After retreating back to the main place, the chief made it clear that no one would ever attempt to reach the cellar again.

There would be no legal or illegal travel back and forth and the cellars would be forgotten as cellars.

When the chef said for the last time that many had come and gone before us, many had left their heads there, everyone was still thinking about butter and cheese.

Then the chef closed the hole to the cellar and the others began to talk among themselves.

The hole, the trap and the cheese were now the topic of the day, and in this abundance of talk everyone could easily get through the day.