| Saturday, May 21, 2005 |
| The Farley O' Matic, Now Only $49.95 + S&H |
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The rural nature of Oklahoma means that
1) buildings are more likely to grow out than up,
2) residents have more cars in their yard than they do teeth in their mouth,
3) and rodent invasions are inevitable.
Ever since I started my current job almost three years ago, we have had one or two non-salaried employees of the Mickey Mouse variety. Somebody would shout, "Ooh, there he goes!" as I quickly lifted my feet off the ground and kept on working. Pest control was called in and I was anticipating all sorts of contraptions and doohickies that could, if used properly, entice a bear out of a cave and trap it for eternity. Instead he brought 4"x6" sticky boards that smelled like peanut butter. "Right," I thought. We were more likely to catch Jenna and Heidi off of Survivor than we were any rodents.
Last year, we pinpointed that the mice were getting in through a hole in the wall in my boss' office. Since we were on the second floor, they either took the stairs or used the walls to travel around. I took about 10 sticky traps and lined the floor all around the hole in the wall. When we came back after the weekend, there was a large spot of gray fur on the boards underneath the hole and several small specks of fur surrounding tiny footprints that had walked off of the "not quite sticky enough to catch a fly" peanut butter goo. Eventually my boss sealed off the hole with some foam and we haven't had any visitors since.
This past week, I sat inside a co-worker's office watching a bird eat some raisins she had put outside for her feathered friends. The bird flew off and I turned to face her when something turned the corner of her office door and ran along the wall doing about 90 mph. I sat for a couple seconds thinking, "What was that?" and then realized it was a mouse. When I told her, she said, "Oh, he's back? I thought we got him." All the while she sat about two feet from the last point I had visual contact with the mouse, nonchalantly talking with me. Now, I'm not going to scream if somebody yells "mouse," but I'm also not going to sit there and give it the opportunity to nibble on my toes thinking that they just might taste like Nutter Butters.
Anywho, so this is the big buildup to my story from this morning. I walked into the kitchen this morning and Lauren was sitting on the floor. Rancito walked around the counter with Farley in one arm. Since Lauren's birth, Farley is rarely in Rancito's arms unless he's getting in trouble, so I knew something was up. They got closer and Farley had a medium sized piece of lint in his mouth. Of course, I was really hoping that a piece of lint that size wasn't found by nosing around my clean kitchen appliances, so I thought maybe he had got it from the laundry trash. That is, until I saw that the lint had a head.
Rancito said that Farley had been running around all morning from the living room to the kitchen, when all of a sudden, Rancito heard the tell-tale signs of a pounce in the kitchen: tags rattling and nails on the tile. It was a very tiny mouse, maybe the size of a little smokey, but I couldn't have been prouder of the little weinerschnitzel. So we threw him outside so he could bury, roll, or partake in a meal of the mouse morsel. Some of you are holding back a retch, aren't you?
We'll be sure to de-sanitize Farley and brush his teeth before he comes anywhere near Lauren, of course. What kind of hillbillies do you think we are? |
| posted by ieatcrayonz @ 5/21/2005 |
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