some stories are so funny; we laugh until we cry and some stories are so sad we cry before we finish, but all stories need to be told...

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

no more ms. nice guy

it cannot be stopped
like puking- when a story or an idea for a story makes an appearance in your brain- like puke, it must be dealt with immediately.
otherwise it is lost
and if it thinks itself to be a really good story- it won't stop- you try to sleep STORY- you try to eat STORY- you try to go to the john STORY STORY STORY
you cannot put it off- if you try this, thinking, "story, i will deal with you later"- well, you'll find stories don't negotiate. they come. they go. it's like that-
sometimes they won't stop nagging even after you've written them down. then they stay and switch to edit mode. so you'll be in the middle of a romantic sexy moment and you'll receive a message marked "urgent" and in that moment of ecstasy you'll hit your palm to your forehead and think "brilliant- the mouse should get the cheese in the middle, not the end" and you'll look at your partner hoping you didn't say that out loud.

there is a mouse in our house
or before you say it let me correct myself - in the voice of my THESKYISFALLING grandmother there are several mice because "IFYOUHAVEONEMOUSEYOU HAVESEVENOREIGHT" where she draws her statistics from nobody nows, but she is hungarian, a little wacky, a whole lot grumpy and she is usually right.

we laid out sticky traps and in all honesty at first i felt really really bad. we would catch a mouse and i would picture his teeny wife or his teeny mother in her teeny mousehole, standing at the entrance wringing her teeny mouse hands in anticipation of her teeny husband's/son's return.  a teeny mouse baby would be crying in the back ground and teeny mouse toddlers would be acting up in the absence of the teeny man of the teeny house. the teeny mouse woman would turn to her charges and sadly explain in her teeny sad voice "papa isn't coming back" and there would be lots of teeny tears and the teeny teen-aged mouse boys would promise revenge upon the humans who killed their father- some sort of death by giant sticky trap.
i don't feel bad anymore
i am tired of awaking each bright morning and stepping into my living room only to be assailed by the smell of garbage.
i am tired of lifting the bag from the bin and watching the garbage juice pour from the mouse bitten holes.
i am tired of trying to get my fingers into the crevices (what purpose they serve other than to make cleaning impossible i haven't a clue) of the bottom of the can trying to scrub the left behind crumbs and garbage away.
i am tired of trying to strategically get water into the bottom of the dirty bin all the while trying to avoid the two dime-sized holes at the bottom (made by the manufacturer OBVIOUSLY a lover of mice as these holes serve no purpose other than mouse entry- are they there to air the garbage? i think not.)
i am tired of wishing i had paid better attention (okay, who am i kidding not better attention- i wish i had paid attention) in math or science. whatever. the subject where the teacher explained water displacement and how although it looks like a small amount when disturbed it turns into a huge mess.
we have caught three (*technically i would say four as one was large-ish for a mouse, but small-ish for a rat- he was equal to two mice)
and now i want them all
i want them to suffer the same way they make me suffer
they are fucking with us
the other day we spent hours "doing the right thing"
we emptied and scrubbed closets. we plugged all the holes with steel wool- we discovered that gorilla glue makes tape and we taped over the steel wool.
we rubbed clove oil on the baseboards- hoping the mice would see this as a warning sign and keep out.
we were tired but happy, thinking there was no way they could get in.
i awoke to the garbage smell.
next level
we tried mashed potato buds from a box. you know, the ones from the 1970's that nobody should have eaten and i'm quite sure if the research were done it would show that most of the current cancers are caused by ingestion of this item (as children of liberated mothers of the 70's- we ate a lot of  "quick and tasty" foods- "no muss no fuss"- no future either- but who cares?- they're quick AND easy). we were told that mice love these potatoes- they would eat them- then return to their "den of strategy" where their bellies would explode.
not nice.  but more dignified than death by sticky trap.
have you ever seen a mouse on a sticky trap? they go from cocky to cheerless- in seconds flat.
i used to feel the need to pour oil on the trap, freeing them all the while yelling RUN RUN before sly came to "take care" of the trap
now i want to sit and tell the mouse- "we tried, we really tried to keep you out- to show you we were serious, but you wouldn't listen"
i envision the mice, while i am in bed at night straining my ears to listen for them- i see them
in teeny tiny tom cruise mission impossible outfits
they rappel down to the floor. they have teeny tiny headlamps. they use teeny tiny hand signals.
two mice raise the sticky trap nearest the garbage while the leader climbs in.
there is a chain gang formed and crumbs are passed from teeny mouse hand to teeny mouse hand. teeny tiny mouse bags are filled.
the leader is pulley-ed to safety.
the last two lower the trap, give one last look around, switch off their head lamps and disappear.
they laugh loudly as they count their score.

we cannot catch them.
we think they are gone.
we forego the traps.
garbage smell.
we place traps down
we place traps DOWN- our kitchen is 10' x 10' and sly placed 13 traps out last night.
we catch nothing
but i hear the teeny laughter....

now i think i know the score
i'm ON to them
they have a pattern with dates- like a serial killer
the teeny leader has a teeny office and behind his teeny desk next to the teeny magic erase board (where the day's teeny assignments are posted all pointing to apartment d1) there is a teeny calendar.
i must watch
i must wait
i must by a calendar.

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