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Historical November 1995 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
(published this month at the insistence of the Unabomber) We’ve had visitors staying at the house lately. Lots of them.
They don’t take up much space and we need not worry about having clean linens in the bedroom or, even, making extra coffee in the morning. Our visitors, you see, are a family of mice. Or possibly we have several families of mice. I’m really not sure. Maybe we have a mouse convention.
We first became aware of the mice when we heard some tiny noises coming from within the wall. Not exactly squeaks or yipyaps, but little rustlings and hustlings. Something was in there and we didn’t know what!
Then we found some little mouse remains in a cabinet, sort of care packages left for us.
There was no doubt what had joined our happy little home, and then one day it was clinched: the first wife saw a mouse. “EEEAAAAHHHHI-IY0000WW WWFFFFFI” she screamed, dropping a plate filled with microwave popcorn, a Goat’s Breath beer, and some Girl Scout cookies dethawing from last year. (As hick would have It, it was her turn to prepare the dinner and it was now all on the floor.) China shattered everywhere as the wife, literally, scootched up on the counter. “THERE, THERE,” she yelled to me, hopping up and down and pointing at a cabinet, thrusting her hand back and forth as if she were casting a spell on the weathered wood. “My God, woman,” I replied, “is it a copperhead, cobra, or vicious troll? Has Charles Manson found his way in our house? Is Rush Limbaugh squatting beneath our sink?” “No, you fool,” she replied with her usual aplomb and delicacy, “it’s a mouse!” I opened the door but the cabinet space was empty. Of course, the mouse wouldn’t have had to be too smart to hear the wife’s shrieks. Two sets of neighbors had already come to the door to see what the problem was; a third neighbor had called 911, figuring that with this much noise, an ax-murderer must have found his way to our door.
I reassured the neighbors and went back to calm the wife. By now she had made more popcorn, opened another beer, and taken some Savannahs from the freezer to dethaw. Never let adversity get in the way of a fine meal! Together, we slowly opened all of the kitchen cabinet doors. Nothing was to be found besides a few pots and pans and the wife’s collection of Independence Day china. Later that night, while smoking a cigar and eating some Heath Bar frozen yogurt, I spied a tiny gray mouse.
It darted from a space beneath the radiator, ran half-way across the room, stopped to look at me, and then zipped through a hole at the bottom of a cabinet.
The wife, sitting next to me, had fallen asleep, so I awakened her with the news that I, too, had seen a mouse. “EEEAAAAHHHHHY0000WW WWEEEEEI” she screamed. “But honey,” I said, “you didn’t even see the mouse. Why in the world are you screaming?” She gave me a look that could freeze boiling oil, rolling her eyes far back in her head. ‘You dolt,” she said, “I screamed because you’re standing on my foot!” We sat up late that night, plotting our plan of mice attack. That was months ago, and we foolishly thought the problem would quickly be solved. Not. Since then, we’ve gone through several strategies, all with varying degrees of unsuccess: setting mouse traps, placing mouse poison, using little cages into which the mice crawl but can’t get out, borrowing a cat, and hiding mouse- paper which sticks to their little paws and immobilizes them.
We even tried mounting small radio transmitters inside the walls; they emit a high-frequency pitch that mammals cannot hear but will drive rodents crazy. Alas, none of our strategies were successful.
We still have mice and like the former states of the Soviet Union, are learning to happily co-exist.
I suspect that the mice are also happy. One of them is probably sitting right now at a teenie-tiny word processor, writing a column, “In Your Cheese,” talking about how they’ve learned to co-exist with the humans in their house.
It could be worse, I figure.
After all, what if they wouldn’t let us stay here?
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November 1995.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1995_11.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
