I heart NPR

This morning when I woke up there was a story on NPR about mouse traps. The interviewer was talking to a guy who inherited the mouse trap business from his father and I think they might be the family that invented the famous old school mouse traps with the V on them.

So, in the story the mouse-trap guy talked about mice and how they are very inquisitive and very easy to catch because if you set up basically anything they'll investigate it. He also talked about all the different kinds of mouse trap inventions that people would come to him with and while interesting it's usually just not worth making a new mouse trap because the old V kind are about 88% effective and cost next to nothing.

Well, anyway, the interviewer asked what was one of the most interesting traps he had heard of and he told about this trap:

"It is a box trap that the mouse goes into and a door shuts behind it." mouse-trap guy explained. "Pretty typical up to this point, but then when the mouse nibbles the bait, a pellet drops into a little water and the mouse dies of carbon-monoxide poisoning. It's basically a little gas chamber."

"Oh, my god," says the interviewer. "Where these ever used anywhere?"

"Germany" answers the mouse-trap guy

"You are kidding" replies the interviewer, horrified

"No." the mouse-trap guy sounds like he's trying not to laugh, "Seriously, they marketed them in Germany."

"As a Jew," says the interviewer "I find that really disturbing."

I immediately wrote T in Munich with the subject line: thinking of you.