By Ann Minnett

Hands down, the best gift I ever received was a mousetrap built by JD, my three-year-old son. His preschool teacher allowed him to work on his masterpiece all morning long, and when I arrived to pick him up, both JD and Ms. Johnson were triumphant in his accomplishment.

A Sylvester the Cat sticker once adorned the front flap “to scare the mouse” into the box. The hinged door would drop and trap the mice. It could hold a lot of them.

The sticker rubbed off decades ago, but I’ve displayed JD’s mousetrap as an object of art for thirty-five years. It’s my favorite thing.