A Trap For Fools by Jim Redwine

When I set out to trap whatever varmints were stealing our cat’s food I felt confident. After all, I was pretty sure my adversaries were not members of any “… well-regulated militia” nor graduates of any accredited educational institutions nor associated with any liberal or right-wing political groups. I, on the other hand, have had experience surviving struggles with all of these.

As to a well-regulated militia, the United States Air Force should qualify no matter what our U.S. Army soldier son thinks and Indiana University is respected if football is not considered. When it comes to the mish-mash of current political “thought”, I have managed to avoid or ignore the clanging vapidness of extremists on all sides.

Anyway, I counted myself as at least equal to raccoons, opossums, skunks and our only neighbors’ straying house pets. But as coach and television sports analyst Lee Corso might say, “Not so fast, Jim”. Apparently in the war of wits between the purloining pests I am not sufficiently armed.

A few weeks ago when I finally figured out our once feral cat was upset his morning meal kept going missing I contacted my friend Paul Axton who is a Department of Natural Resources Officer. Paul brought me out a trap and showed me how to use it; this took some patience on his part.

As instructed I baited it with giant marshmallows (who knew?) and set it beside the cat’s food tray. My first and only catch was our cat. He was not amused and still tries to claw my hand when I put his food out.

The way this trap is supposed to work one baits it and when a thief enters the trap seeking a marshmallow a metal plate is tripped by the weight of the animal and the only door falls behind it. Unfortunately, our cat is the only animal dumb enough for this to work. On the other hand, perhaps I have furnished enough marshmallows to whatever stealthy animal miscreant is gorging itself on sugar it will catch diabetes. However, it is probably more likely to die laughing at my efforts as it dines at my expense.

What this whole imbroglio brings to my mind is one of my favorite poems by Rudyard Kipling entitled If. One of the lines goes something like this (apologies to Kipling):

If you can bear to see your plans twisted by varmints to make a trap
for fools, I guess one just has to determine what fool is being trapped.