I Hope the Path To Enlightenment Is Heavily Sprayed With Pesticides

Rebecca, a new commenter on my blog has uncovered the true path to my heart (giving me new opportunities to talk about myself) and tagged me. Thanks Rebecca! She has tagged me to share 7 facts about myself.

1. I love White Castle. There, I’ve said it. I don’t eat there, or at any fast food establishment very often, but there are moments when I crave them like nobody’s business. MDH, and many other very smart people with discerning tastes find them disgusting and I heartily agree, but there are times when nothing else will do. It’s probably for the best interest of my arteries and breath that we don’t have them in Grand Rapids. Ordinarily I don’t think about it much, but I’m kinda hungry right now.

2. I love my car. It’s not fancy or anything, but it’s paid for, it goes really fast and has an excellent sound system. Several years ago I was able to pick out any car I wanted regardless of price, co-signature or opinion. Prior to that someone else had always been involved and I ended up with cars I was supremely unhappy with. I will happily drive this car until it falls apart.

3. There are tubes and tubs of lip balm stashed away in every one of my coat pockets, desk drawers, junk drawers and crevices within arms reach of my favored spots around the house and our cars. For me it’s either Burt’s Bees or Blistex Lip Medix (in the dark blue tub). No others will do. Somehow, my lips are still cracked and chapped. Almost every time I do laundry, the sound of an errant lip balm can be heard tumbling around in the spin cycle. I always hope to catch it before it goes into the dryer and makes a big waxy mess.

4. I weigh myself every single day. Twice. Once when I first get up and again after I’ve, well, you know. This has been my habit for about 10 years. I love it when a hotel has a bathroom scale so that I can weigh myself when I’m traveling too. Hardly any hotels that we can afford to stay in have bathroom scales.

5. I have a really strong stomach for blood and guts. It’s probably from working in vet clinics for so long, but I was kind of like that before. There are a few things that get to me, but even still I don’t get too pukey. I’m also a handy person to have around in an emergency because I don’t freak out until after the moment has passed. Now after having said all that here are a few exceptions: dead birds, mice (living or dead), other people’s snot (I’m cool with my own). If you come after me with any of those things I will scream like a girl.

6. People who don’t take care of their pets properly; don’t take them to the vet regularly, don’t train them properly, leave them outside all the time, don’t get them spayed or neutered, piss me off. My cousin’s husband (such an asshole) claims to “breed” St. Bernards, but he really just has a kennel full of sad drooling giant dogs that hardly ever get petted or loved. He treats them like livestock and they pee themselves and jump all over you whenever you go near them, thus making people less likely to ever come near to pet or love on them.

7. I hate camping or doing anything that may cause me to get a tick, require me to go without bathing or wearing make-up or relieve myself outdoors. I don’t mind a good day of hiking, biking or other outdoorsy activities that might make me sweat (I can always wear waterproof make-up), but don’t ask me to do those things and then not have a proper shower or flushing toilet. I’ll take a fully plumbed cabin or a room at the lodge please.

Rebel that I am, I'm not going to tag anyone else, but hope that you will take it upon yourselves to meme at will. (Tara, I know you are good for these, and how about you Evil-E, are you up for it? - you guys are semi-tagged).

Icky Mouse

I got the little fucker that was rummaging around gnawing the wooden handles off the utensils in my gadget drawer.

We'd been living like wild animals for the past two weeks with the contents of the gadget drawer dumped temporarily in a paper shopping bag on the dining room table. Every time I needed a bottle opener, corkscrew or foil cutter I had to root around in that goddamn paper bag - can you imagine my anguish?

I replaced the contents of the drawer with a paper towel upon which I placed a brand new no see, no touch mousetrap baited with a generous wad of organic peanut butter.

The no see no touch trap is a thing of beauty.

The mousy goes into the holey and the trappy is immediately swiveled shutty. I don't even know how the trap kills the mousy and I frankly don't give a shit.

I get to live oblivious to the suffering of vermin, just how I like it.

The only way I know a mousy has been detained in the trap is because the little hole is closed and the paper towel has been ripped with little tiny claw marks. The paper towel was my idea. I'm just tidy and wasteful of paper products like that. That's how I roll. Get it? Paper towel? Roll?

Ahhh... Anyhoo...

I also noticed there were little tiny bits of black plastic mousetrap all over the drawer. And No it wasn't poop. I had MDH check. I think the mouse may have struggled and tried desperately to claw his miserable way out, leaving behind little mousy shavings of death. Not that I care.

Good.

Riddance.

Fucking Mice

I want to go live in a hotel.

Last night when I was putting away trivets and such after dinner (the lamb was deelish) I opened the big giant gadget drawer under my cooktop and discovered a rather large pile of wood shavings strewn about my gadgety cookery things and my clean kitchen towels and potholders. Motherfucking mice had eaten the bamboo handle to one of my tea strainers.

I found a dead one in the garage the very day we moved in. Of course it was completely disgusting, but after I finished screaming I kicked it into a flower bed (and then avoided watering or weeding in that bed forever afterwards) and didn't worry much about it again. Until several months later in the fall when I picked up the box of trash bags I keep under the kitchen sink and discovered a rather large but neatly stacked pyramid of cat kibble. For a split second I was astounded thinking that somehow the cat had done this and that over the years he had been hiding his genius.

Soon I realized that not only was our cat much dumber than he had let on, he was also slower, older and fatter than I cared to think about. Also probably quite humiliated as undoubtedly mice were casually strolling by him relay style back and forth from the cupboard to the other side of the room to his dish in order to amass such a stash while he watched helpless and ashamed. In Ollie's defense though he was pretty old, nearly 18, and not in the best health. He developed some pretty serious liver problems the following summer and we had him put to sleep.

Then we got Turtle. He's our current kitty and quite the mouser. He's young and spry which helps. It still disgusts me that I need to have such a cat and by the way it's certainly not why I got him. I can always tell when there's a mouse in the house because he pursues it with so much intensity that he won't sleep or eat. He will stare at the baseboard under the dishwasher for days on end and I have to shove him a little with my foot to get any dishes in or out of there. Most normally Turtle is where ever I am. When he is not I know we've got a problem.

In the fall and winter months we probably have a mouse every 2 months or so. And what are you supposed to do about them? I don't want to put down poison because then they'd all be dead but also stinking up my house for eternity. I also don't want Turtle to bite into a poisoned mouse. You'd think that working in the veterinary business would cause me to use a live catch trap, but no. I want those suckers to die, die, die. Quickly of course. Until last night I want them dead but not suffering. Dispatched quickly and painlessly. Today is different.

Flashback to a couple of falls ago:

After I discovered the kibble pyramid I went to Lowe's and bought an expensive battery powered trap to electrocute them. It was kind of space age and used about a hundred batteries, but I liked that I didn't have to see or touch the mouse. According to the package directions a light would come on to tell me there was a mouse in the trap. I envisioned being able to, in one clean motion, flip the trap open with the tippy tip of my pinkie finger and wing the body into the neighbors bushes without ever having to touch or look at it.

After I loaded all the batteries I placed it in the cupboard under the kitchen sink behind the box of trashbags, but sticking out enough so that I could see that blinking light. I checked it every day for a week and got nothing. And then the week after, of course when my husband was out of town I smelled that smell. It's unmistakable as anything but dead critter. I'm embarrassed to say that I let it go for a couple more days because the thought of a dead mouse is more disgusting to me than a living one. Why didn't the god damned light blink??? Shit!

I finally got up the courage to poke the trap with a stretched out coat hanger so that I could see if there was a tail sticking out the back end of it. There was. And not only that, but the fucker had been dead for so long that it had begun oozing out decaying body goo that was now all over the cupboard for me to wipe up. Shit, man. Fuck.

Here is exactly what I want:

• I want my husband to come home this very minute and take care of this mess for me.


• I want all the mice in this house to magically disappear.

Since there was no one at home to hear my demands (if a tree falls in the forest, etc.) I had to calm down and create my own plan of action.

The plan involved the grill-set oven mitts that go up to your elbows, the extra-long grill-set hot dog tongs, an entire can of Glade Clean Linen room spray and a kitchen towel tied around my face. My Ninja-like flip and wing plan didn't work. The trap didn't open that easily and dead body was stuck and wouldn't allow itself to be winged. I also realized as I was standing at the edge of our property by the neighbors bushes in broad daylight (daylight is always "broad" when you are trying not to be seen) that their dog was standing 3 feet away looking right at me. Thankfully he was too stunned to bark at the crazy shuddering lady with the oozing trap, hot dog tongs and brightly checkered Crate & Barrel kitchen towel covering her face.

I ended up throwing the entire trap away, along with the tongs, mitts and towel. I believe that this entire process took about 5 or 6 hours and when it was finished my hair had gone entirely white.

Back then I was disgusted and afraid. Today I AM PISSED OFF. Back then they were invading the place I store trash bags and dish soap. Today they are invading a place where I store the tools I touch every day and use to handle the FOOD I feed my FAMILY.

Today I am open to any (realistic) suggestions that involve death with as little mess as possible. From now on suffering is allright with me. This is war.

PS, I've been using the spine-snapping plastic traps baited with peanut butter, but the mice are now able to get all the bait without snapping the trap. Motherfuckers! Seriously, what else have you got people?