When it comes to a relationship with women, words can work magic. For example, “I love you,” can melt her heart. “Thank you,” after a home-cooked meal can ensure your gastronomic satisfaction for years to come. “I’m sorry,” well, that speaks for itself.

The list of words that will endear her to you forever goes on and on.

However, if you’re wondering exactly where that list stops I can tell you. It stops with “Honey, it’s just a mouse.”

(For The Record: “Honey” is optional.)

That was my response when my wife yelled, “Get that thing,” after she saw a mouse run out of a planter in our backyard.

“It could get into the house. They’re dirty. They carry disease. They poop everywhere.”

“Relax,” I said. “I’ll pick up a mousetrap at Home Depot, a little peanut butter at Trader Joe’s, problem solved.”

“What? You’re going to kill it?”

Feel free to reply with the first thing that comes to your mind, because despite tremendous advances in expanding the human intellect, there is no way to answer that question and not invalidate a lifetime of I love yous, thank yous and I’m sorrys.

Half an hour later she handed me a cardboard tube from the center of a roll of toilet paper.

“You flatten one end of the tube and fill it with a spoonful of peanut butter. Then you balance the tube on the edge of a wall or planter, flattened end out, and place a deep bucket underneath it.”

According to my wife, the mouse will crawl into the tube, tip it over, and both will drop into the bucket.

I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned this sort of knowledge can’t be allowed to fall into the hands of our enemies.

“I’ll flatten the tube and fill it with peanut butter,” my wife said.

My contribution would be disposing of the mouse, a job whose sole qualification seemed to be having a Y chromosome.

I also got to wash the spoon she used for the peanut butter.

“You’ll get rid of it in a humane way,” she said.

“I’ll consider it a prisoner of war.”

It took a while, but she finally agreed that releasing it in the yard of our neighbor, the one who parks with his rear fender in our driveway, was in accord with the Geneva Conventions.

That night, sensing danger, the mouse decided not to crawl into the tube. Instead, she moved it.

“How could a mouse carry off the tube?” my wife asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe it has a mouse robot with a little mouse camera it uses to look inside.”

“Find it.”

“I doubt I’ll have any luck finding a mouse that clearly is smarter than…” and here I chose my words carefully…“I am,” I said.

“Not the mouse. The tube. Before it attracts skunks. Or coyotes.”

And that’s how I wound up traipsing through the ivy and assorted flowering plants…all of which I was instructed not to damage…looking for not just any cardboard tube, but one surrounded by the cast of Bambi.

I’d have had better luck looking for it on eBay.

“What if it finds its way into the house before we try again?” my wife said.

“You drink eight glasses of water a day,” I reminded her. “I suspect we’ll have another tube ready to go by tomorrow.”

Well, I thought it was good news.

Meanwhile, my wife is calling anything in the house that’s small and dark brown mouse poop. This includes my age spots.

And I’ve been studying the Geneva Conventions to see what they say about humanity and mousetraps.