Having a heart in the hardware store

H'ray! Last night I finally got some catch-and-release traps, at the soon-to-be-late (and very lamented) Candey's Hardware, the sort of place where I can never find anything without help but where the staff know the stock down to the last washer. The guy behind the counter peered at my pile of shrinkwrapped grey boxes. "Have-a-heart traps! So ya got a heart, huh?" "I don't know about that, but I'm pretty sure I don't have the guts to keep using the glue traps." "Heh heh. Well, we've been selling mousetraps like crazy this year. Seems like a year-long thing with 'em." Hah, so it's not just me and/or slovenly housekeeping. "Most folks don't mind the glue traps, though. Just step on the mouse and you're done, right?" "Y...eah. That's...pretty much what I can't do."

The traps are ingeniously designed to snap closed as soon as any weight disrupts their balance, so after playing with them for a while I primed them and set them up near the oven, just where I originally saw my non-rent-paying roomie. So far the mice have resisted the lure of the peanut butter I smeared inside--maybe they wanted creamy rather than chunky?--but I'm feeling more relaxed. Days of no sightings plus the promise that I won't find a sad little furry Dying Gaul squeaking out his last ("Spaaarrrr...taaaaa") on a glue sheet will do that. Isn't perspective grand?

This morning has involved a farmers market run and a frantic phone call from Teal, who was already, at the unbelievably early hour of 11:00 AM, up and about in preparation for the fashion show she's in tonight--a show, I might add, that is being executed despite a degree of planning chaos I previously associated exclusively with the Slavic community. The gist of the call, once I managed to figure out what she was saying, in an unusually flustered tone, was that she wanted to put nonslip soles on the silver shoes she had borrowed. Looks like I'll get to see both my friend and part of my wardrobe parading in front of the flower of the ambassadorial world tonight--what fun! Several of us got invitations on the strict condition that we comport ourselves like reasonable opera-going beings, golf-clapping politely rather than yelling, "I CAN SEE YER KNEES COZ YER IN A SKIRT!" and wolf-whistling. I wonder whether anyone told the ambassadors that they can't do that either.