One of the unavoidable steps in replacing windows in one’s house is the removal of the existing windows. This will inevitably result in the leaving in the side of one’s house what is technically referred to as “big freakin’ holes,” which may also be translated into verminese as “Grab the kids, Ethyl…the buffet is open!”
This situation was first called to my attention by MLB early Tuesday morning.
Her: When we went to bed last night, there were two pieces of food in Abbye’s bowl.
Me: That’s interesting.
Her, following a pause pregnant with possibility: The bowl is now empty.
[Cue soundtrack; discordant strings, please]
reek! reek! reek! reek!
Well. Unless Abbye had suddenly developed teleportation skills, ala Nightcrawler in X2, something else was cleaning her food bowl during the night.
I confirmed the suspicion this morning, finding two half-eaten pieces of dog food in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, along with the usual disgusting byproducts of rodentary metabolism.
OK, so we may have a mouse in the house but no need to grouse, my spouse (I said, inexplicably channeling the spirit of Theodor Geisel)…it’s not like we’re in danger of, say, bubonic plague.
Then I looked at the front page article in today’s newspaper in which the Department of Health has reportedly issued a plague advisory for the Midland, Texas area.
reek! reek! reek! reek!
This will, of course, call for drastic measures. In a former life, we called it “wetwork,” IYKWIM…AISYD. The only question I’m now deliberating is whether we should try to save the house’s foundation, or rebuild from the bedrock. Stay tuned…
There’s some good news about bubonic plague, The Black Death, and other potentially rodent related ailments.
Then again, that’s only one view. Personally, I wouldn’t trust some scientist’s speculations about what may or may not have caused such a catastrophic outbreak.
Brueghel, who had the virtue of living in that era (something today’s “experts” do not), gave us far too vivid a picture of the plague and its effects.
Rats and their diseases are serious trouble.
Napalm the kitchen? For starters think of what a great excuse you’d have to remodel! Imagine being able to actually tell your wife when she wakes up…
“You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, honey. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning! You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn’t find one of ’em, not one stinkin’ body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill.
Smelled like – victory.”
Now, where did I put my cavalry hat? (I do have the surfboard…well, it’s a sailboard, but close enough for napalm.)