Caught In A Trap

After trying and failing a couple weeks ago with the old tilted-box-balanced-on-a-stick-tied-with-string trick to catch our long self-exiled Bink, I spent waaaaay too much money on what we hoped would be a more effective capture apparatus — and one that didn’t require us to stand around in the dark waiting for Bink to mosey on over for a bite to eat.

We set the trap up for a trial run, tying off the door (triggered shut when a plate inside gets stepped on) so it wouldn’t close just to give Bink a chance at a free pass to get a bit at ease with it in hopes of catching him up tonight — and also because we didn’t want to wake and find an angry raccoon or a skunk or opossum in there this morning.

Unclear on the concept, Pumpkin mistook the confinement for a new hangout:

And actually I think Pumpkin’s chilling inside a good stretch of the day and getting his smell all up in there may have helped our desired end result. Because after placing Bink’s dinner inside and focusing the PatioCam on it and going to bed, I awoke this July 4th morning to find this image captured at 5:01 a.m. of what I’m pretty sure is a motion-blurred Bink all the way in:

Trial mission accomplished! But now I’m miffed we didn’t just rig it to close, because it would have been nice to have Bink safe inside on what will undoubtedly be the snap-crackle-pop-boomingest night of the year. Hopefully this time tomorrow morning we’ll be cuddling with the old curmudgeonly cat.

Or figuring out how to let out any of several species of wild critter.