Meanwhile, a mouse ran up and down the corridor, considering with apparent interest the humane mousetrap with a fresh peanut butter-coated saltine in it, without ever actually crossing the threshold of it. Without becoming "trapped," as it were. Running up and down the corridor, in plain view. All, "I love this corridor with its fresh scent of peanut butter and saltine. So much better than that cold-ass field out back!"
Meanwhile, I checked all the humane mousetraps every twenty minutes or so. I have so much faith in them! And so many mice to trap!
I'm still getting used to going outside again, after my long confinement in the House of Contagion. Very cold, for one. Snow-packed. Disorientingly bright. I need a pair of those Victorian sunglasses, the kind that protect your illness-addled brain from The Brightness.
Meeting, meeting, and the drive home. I came home to find that we had caught the (a?) mouse. I made dinner for the second night in a row, so that's something. We ate the very last one of the Chad-procured tomatoes. I let it sit quietly nestled in its bag for days and days, which turned out to be the optimal condition for it ripening to absolute perfection. We ate it with our baked penne and it was a last lucky hit of summer. The ne plus ultra of tomato, in December, on a snowy night.
Meanwhile, another mouse has been running up and down the corridor, disdaining the humane mousetrap while admiring its fragrance, congratulating itself on its excellent taste in shelter.
effing mice.
ReplyDeleteHa! Your mouse in the corridor image rivaled Robin Williams description the other night of deer grazing lazily on his garden while coyotes paced in the yard like addicts asking if the cat could come out to play--perhaps you should just turn your posts into stand-up routines!
ReplyDeleteYou are the best. Your writing about mice puts all my writing to shame.
ReplyDeleteI love your humanity! I will try to refrain from imagining you putting little coats on the mice before you send them into the field.
ReplyDeleteWait. The humane traps are catch and release? You need a cat.
ReplyDeleteOnce when I was teaching junior high a mouse got caught in one of those "humane" sticky mouse traps right in the middle of 3rd period. The shrieking noise it made paled only in comparison to the shrieking taken up by an entire room of 8th graders.
ReplyDeleteAnd once, a mouse gave birth in the back of my parents piano. I'll never forget those hairless baby mice.
I walked outside one night before it turned cold and heard this HUGE shrieking in a nearby bush. Not a good kids-making-out-beneath-the-lilacs shrieking. A sort of rodent-caught-by-my-cat shrieking. The next morning there was a present of a dead rat on a doormat.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Gillian. You need a cat.