Sunday, October 18, 2009

Rodents!

We have a mouse in our house.

Well, Joe says it's a vole. Vole, schmole, it's a rodent, and I made its acquaintance today completely by accident. It scurried right past me in the shower room and vanished under the sink.


I remember going EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

Yes it's true, a woman will say that when a mouse scurries under her feet. I didn't know that either, but, trust me, it happened.

Joe heard my ear-splitting reaction and said, "Oh, that's Gerald."

He has apparently seen this bit of vermin before, and has given it a name, based on a Pink Floyd song.

Whatever, we have to set up a trap or something. Which I hate to do. Because if Gerald is really a wild Alaskan vole and not a house mouse, he qualifies as wildlife and not a varmint and I guess deserves to be captured and released as opposed to bashed or poisoned or suffocated.

But he's way too urban for my taste. I want him OUT, vole or mouse or rare Siberian Skrat, get the hell out of my house you creepy little crumb-and-poop-scattering RODENT!!

He should strive to emulate the ways and manners of Pipsqueak, our little tree squirrel. I watched Pipsqueak energetically run back and forth across our yard, his little cheeks puffy with seeds. Pipsqueak appears to be setting up a cache of food for the winter, and as I encountered him today for the first time, he paused in the midst of his work, as if utterly flabbergasted at the sight of me. He looked up, his little cheeks distended, then bent down quickly, as if to resume his business. But, clearly, he was peturbed, so he did what I think is the squirrel version of the double-take, as in: WHAT THE @%&$??!!!

Pipsqueak is about half the size of your typical Midwestern gray tree squirrel, is cinnamon colored, and has a decidedly Ewok-ish face. If you don't know what an Ewok is, time to cuddle up to the Star Wars trilogy again. In other words, his face bore a look of rodent-like gravitas, as if he could fly a spaceship if he really wanted to. Instead he let out a sound like a rubber squeaky toy, and fled up the side of a nearby spruce.

You will note there are no pictures accompanying this post. Rodents move at the speed of light. Perhaps Pipsqueak and Gerald will get into their tiny space ship hidden somewhere in our yard and fly back to their forest moon, Endor.

Gerald, are you listening?

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