Right now our neighbor, Tess, is on furlough (government-speak for temporary layoff) for a couple of weeks we understand. I haven't seen my walking companion Debbie since last Thursday as both families left for the long weekend and we missed our walk yesterday. Brief encounters at our door with one of Budd's co-workers whose personal computer has a virus that Budd is going to remove for him and his boss (I think) needing the key to his government truck--as he is home sick today--don't really count as social engagement. My companions are the computer and the tv, and the latter is pretty one-sided.
So small events, especially those that are unusual in that they don't happen or seldom happen elsewhere take on the trappings of excitement. Like the great mouse chase last night. We were watching the Jazz game, recorded for slightly delayed viewing, when Budd sat up straight on the couch and exclaimed 'That was a mouse!' My first reaction was, Tess didn't get it after all. Then I realized it must be a buddy or family of the one that Tess had indeed caught--moved to our side for fear of the same fate maybe. It had run from behind our scrounged kitchen cabinet around the corner and into the bathroom, so Budd thought it was trapped. But, back it came and ran behind the cabinet again. As he started stalking it, I reluctantly joined the chase, armed with a push-broom as a barrier and the regular broom to stun it if I got the chance.
I actually am not afraid of mice, and think they are rather cute. But my stomach rebels at the thought that they might be chewing through cardboard food containers in the lower cabinets, so I'm not willing to share living space with them unless they are in cages and of the tame variety. And I have an irrational anxiety that they are going to run over my feet. I don't know exactly what harm that could do, but a squeal of revulsion is barely under my control when I know there is one that could do that. My usual tactic on the rare occasions this has happened is to stay out of the fray and pull my feet up off the floor.
The field mice that readily infiltrate these old buildings are trying to escape from cold and coyotes, so I have sympathy, but not enough to let them stay here. This one poked his head out of a hole that had been cut in the back of the cabinet for electrical cords in its former use, spied the barrier and immediately pulled back in. Budd was on the other side and hadn't seen it, so I yelled, and he popped up to look at the hole I was talking about. As he was out of position, Mr. Mouse poked his head out again and then made a mad dash in the other direction. Eluding Budd, he ran quickly along the built-in cabinets and behind the stove and didn't reappear.
Meanwhile, Budd had stepped in his stocking feet into a trail of water that we hadn't previously noticed, originating suspiciously from the cabinet under the sink. Having lost the mouse, he decided to investigate where all the water was coming from and discovered we had a rather serious leak. To trace it, he had to pull everything out that I had stored there, all the cleaning products and a large pot that I use as a mop bucket, as well as plastic grocery bags that we save for all their handy uses. But every time he tried to trace the leak, he bumped the pipes and knocked them loose--or should I say looser? So, we mopped up the water, left the doors open so the cabinet would dry out and he could like on his back to see the problem, and went back to the Jazz game.
But first, I located the enormous new rat traps that I had discovered in the kitchen when we first arrived. We both thought they were overkill--Budd said a trap that big would likely miss the mouse altogether, and I was afraid it would cut it in half and leave me a gruesome sight if it didn't miss. But, lacking anything better, Budd set it and placed it between the stove and the nearest cabinet. I thought the main thing it would do would be to startle us awake in the middle of the night, and in that I proved half-correct. It startled me awake. I spent the rest of the night worried that a maimed mouse was stalking around looking for revenge, leaving bloody little mouse footprints all over the white linoleum and trying to run over my feet if I got up for any reason.
Come morning, I was spared whatever gruesomeness the sight might have held by the fact that the trap had landed upside down...but there was a mouse body and tail hanging out from under. I informed Budd that mouse duty was his job, and he disposed of it in a handy plastic grocery bag.
Running the water for my hot cereal breakfast this morning left a largish pool under the sink. So the next adventure is figuring out how to wash the dishes before he is able to fix the plumbing--without leaving the cabinet floor in a state that will prevent him from getting under there.
Will I be happy to get back to civilization? Oh, yeah.
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