I live in an apartment complex that was built in the 1930s. Hardwood floors, actual plaster walls, carved wooden window frames...it's pretty nice. It's even got a hint of ancient DC celebrity: Eleanor Roosevelt presided at the complex's opening. But unfortunately, old buildings tend to attract a certain kind of tenant, of the freeloading, fertile, and furry variety. Yep, I gots mice.
For a while this was just a suspicion, a hint of scurrying in the ceiling, but on Monday I came home in time to see a little gray blur go shooting under my oven. Oh ho ho, visible mouseage is NOT ON. The maintenance people vowed to send the exterminator over later this week. In the meantime, while I was at work, they let themselves in, leaving a cryptic service note: "Set some trap." They did not mention where, exactly, the trap or traps was/were, so I saw the obvious one, a blessedly empty glue trap, figured that that was it, and started to fix dinner.
Wait, is the ceiling fan squeaking?
No, the fan's off.
Oh fuck. I missed a trap, didn't I.
I'm not going to delve into detail about what was involved in the rest of the proceedings, except that I would rather not go through the whole thing again. Dear mice: We can reach a rapprochement here. Don't show yourselves, don't eat my food, don't poop where I can find it. In return, I promise not to set traps. Otherwise I will be forced to repeat L'Affaire de Tuesday Night, which is, I will grant, substantially more unpleasant for you than for me. I appreciate this frank discussion.
Today the universe seems to be trying to compensate for the evening of squeam. First, someone sent me the link to the Unicorn Museum. A museum! Of unicorns! Both my inner child and my not-very-inner snarky intellectual are tickled. Second, during lunch, I saw a blue Mini Cooper with the inspired license plate PICT. Woad is me: Nobody else on the crowded street seemed to get the joke.
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4 comments:
PICT.
Hmm, identity crisis?
Best to not mention it to a Pict though.
Is it wee and free?
Aiiieee, not the dreaded glue traps! Poor little mices. :( We don't have mice and I doubt we ever will because our cats are HUNTERS. If we ever did we would just have mice corpses laying around. That's fun, too.
Being Mini, it's wee but not free. There can only be whin tousand!
The Stealth Deacon offered to loan me a cat or two. Aside from the litter box issue, I was deterred by the idea of finding the little furry trophies in unexpected places, probably with my feet. AGH. So tonight I must go buy humane traps and get read to send vermins on a holiday to the park, where they can be dinner for the coyotes.
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