Seriously mice, LEAVE.

Call this Pestilence IV - an edition I thought I'd never had to write.

Last night I went to sleep, internal mouse-radar still turned to high, and talked myself into believing the sound coming from near the refrigerator was the de-icer in the freezer doing its thing and that the other sounds I heard were related to the rain falling steadily on Casa Rodente.

I was wrong.

Suddenly wide awake at 1:30 am, I threw on the light. I saw one mouse scamper off the foot of my bed and glimpsed a second blur moving toward the safe haven of the space between the stove and the floor.

And so I spent another night at the staff house.

But today I am bringing the pain. Traps, poison, glue, miniature-guillotine, you name it, I'll use it. I'm bigger, I'm smarter, I have opposable thumbs and access to a wider arsenal and I WILL WIN.

Pestilence, Part III

Saturday dawned grey and cold. I struggled out of my blanket cocoon and into a world where the heat was not on. Stupid conservation. Why can't we heat unused rooms just a little bit?

I had to work, so I took a blistering shower and headed out. Priority one was finding someone from Maintenance who could direct me to the nearest fully-functioning sonic rodent deterrent thingy. And on my way to the coffee machine I saw Maintenance Guy Larry. God bless coffee and God bless Larry, the day sure was looking up.

Except Larry told me they were out of sonic thingys. And the coffee was subpar, but it's always subpar in the dining hall, so my disappointment there was only nominal.

All of this translated to me having to wait another day to get my hands on a sonic-savior, thus another night at the staff house. Nothing like supervising people AND being their roommate. At least I was going to figure out the thermostat for my second night.

At the end of the workday, I knew I needed to go back into the Mouse House and gather clean clothes for another day of exile. I recruited Hali. Good, brave, funny Hali. So we cautiously opened the door and when no phalanx of mice assaulted us, stepped inside. I walked purposefully toward my bedroom in time to hear Hali ask "eww, what are these? Ants?"

And yes, they were ants. Dead ants. Black and shriveled and laying scattered across my living room floor. A significant number of them, too.

Why?

I honestly don't know. Until a couple of days ago, I would've said I didn't have a mouse problem either. So clearly I'm not the one to ask.

So past the dead ant mine-field and into my room for clean cloths. Again, I chose the first ones I could coordinate, swiped some clean underwear from the drawer and headed to the (now dreaded) bathroom for a few things I'd abandoned in my original exodus.

And there it was. Floating. Dead. In the toilet.

And in the toilet was where I left it because I didn't know what to do with it. Flush it? What if it got stuck in there? Scoop it? What if it was smelly and bloaty and toilet water its tail touched me? Uh uh. It wanted the toilet and the toilet it shall get (until I can get someone to help me.)

One more trip across the ant cemetery and the passage of time in the Rodent Green Zone brought Sunday around which in turn, brought me into town where I visited several hardware stores. In the third one they had one last package of the sonic-saviors I'd been seeking (whew, alliteration!) and I unhesitatingly purchased them for $27 on my work credit card.

Take that, mice.

Take that, Maintenance Department Budget.

So homeward I went. I threw all my new groceries into the fridge (yes, even the cheerios and my new face lotion) and plugged in my new anti-mouse devices. They each cover a single room of 500 square feet or less and since my cabin is comprised of four rooms and is a whopping 550 square feet (total) I went ahead and used all 4 devices, just to be extra super duper sure.

(Look at those mice run!)

Passing the toilet tomb and springing blithely over the ant corpses, I left for one last night in the staff house, secure in the knowledge that I had the upper hand (over at least 1/2 my pest problems.)

Now tonight, Monday, I'm back for the first time in three days. I still feel like everything has been crept and crawled over, pawed, nibbled, sniffed and sampled, and this disgusts me more than I care to admit, but what can I do?

After posting this, I shall cozy up to my old friend BLEACH and begin the task of reclaiming my domain. Not how I wanted to spend my Monday night, but perhaps its for the best. I will crank up the good tunes, don my yellow June Cleaver rubber gloves and dance around the house in my oldest sweats, banishing the last traces of the pestilence that banished me over the weekend.

I just hope I can sleep tonight...and that I can use my toilet without any post-traumatic stress flashbacks. I'll keep you posted.

Pestilence, Part II

I flip on the light and climb down from the loft. I'll have a look around and then go back to sleep, I tell myself. I'm sure there's nothing here. And beside, if there was, it'll be scared by my presence and will surely leave for the night. Right?

I reach for the light in the bathroom and snatch back my hand, horrified, as the light falls on a mouse scampering up the wall just inches from where my fingers had been. Oh no. Oh eww. Now what?

I look for his escape hatch and finding more than 10 good options, admit defeat and think think think about what my options are at 11:30 pm on a Friday night. Ah ha! I'll move my little sonic rodent deterrent from my bedroom to the outlet where he was formerly lounging. Hopefully it's just on the other side of his little smuggler's cave and I'll send ear-splitting sonic pulses IN and he'll send his friends and family members OUT.

Except that upon closer inspection, my little sonic rodent deterrent doesn't appear to be working. Which would explain why I have a mouse problem to begin with. Why I'm shocked at this discovery is beyond me. I consider myself fairly clever. Yet here I was, in a mild state of shock at this extraordinary failure.

What now, I ask myself? Run away, myself replies. No, you coward, I counter with disdain. Don't run! They're just mice. You've stayed in houses with mice before. You've slept in AT shelters crawling with them. This is just for one night! What are you, some kind of wuss? Back up the steps, back under the covers, lights off, eyes closed. Turns out I can be quite a bully.

But then...more sounds. Some coming from the direction of the kitchen. Some from the bathroom and one, alarmingly, from the lampshade near my head.

ENOUGH.

I turn on the light, shove my blankets off the bed, toss down a pillow, grab the first handful of clean work clothes I can find, snatch my toothbrush and shampoo from the bathroom and flee to my car. Safe.

I do a quick mental tally of who might be awake at this hour, and more importantly, who might have a spare bed for me tonight. The pickings are slim but after ruling out Emily (who has been sick as a dog all week) and Stevo & Lisa (who are out of town and also share a house with my also-out of town ex boyfriend,) I alight upon the staff house which at this time of year is only half full. I text, they (mercifully) respond and I'm on my way.

I bundle myself and my stuff through the door of the staff house, find an empty room and am asleep, blissfully rodent free, in a matter of moments.

My save haven. Phew.

To be continued...

Pestilence, Part I

Greetings from the house that hell is attempting to reclaim as it's own.

(not my house, but at this rate, I'm not far off...)

Last week, for the first time in the 2+ years I've been living in my "cottage," I discovered an unhappy little mouse turd.

And honoring an important personal tradition, I ignored this bad omen hoping that it was just a "one off," and that the mouse that left it there had looked around, discovered little worth gnawing on, took a quick crap on my bathroom counter and then left for good.

I may have gone as far as imagining that he told all his mousy friends that there was nothing good in the house. "Yeah fellas," he said with a somber twitch of his whiskers, "there's nothing there for us. All the food's put away and her sweaters and blankets are much too nice for us to put holes in in good conscience." And because the other mice were also honorable, they nodded and turned with drooping tails to leave the premises.

But I was wrong. I gave them the (imaginary! foolish! anthropomorphic?) benefit of the doubt and they trampled all over my good faith with their cold, dirty little clawed feet and hideous, hairless pink tails. I shiver at the thought.

After the turd that launched a thousand ships, I had a few nights of interrupted sleep - not that bad dreams or the thud of a branch on my roof woke me up, but rather some sound that prodded my brain awake and then ceased to make itself discernible once I achieved full consciousness.

The semi-wakeful nights plod by and we come to Friday evening. I've just returned from the movies with Emily King and opted out of TV watching, dishes-doing or laundry-sorting (any of the things I should've done) in favor of going to bed early. I'm reading and thinking about turning off the lights when I hear a faint scritching from somewhere below. I freeze and listen intently. Nothing. My eyes get heavy and I switch off the light.

Clickity-clack-tap-tap-scratch-squeak?

Oh no.

Oh yes.

Oh no.

To be continued...

Another Day, Another Blogger

Hello friendlies,

I'm starting this second blog because I liked my first one so much but can't seem to bring myself to continue to post to it. The problem with the first one, of course, was its massive popularity. Oh yes, massive. You see, with 11 "followers," I was feeling encumbered.

No, no. I'm lying now. The truth is much simpler: while I was on the best trip of my life, some of my friends in the office followed the adventure via my original blog: sarahsbrightidea.blogspot.com

When I came back, I was flattered and floored at the response from people like the receptionist and the ladies in the finance office and tomorrow I will thank them for their kind interest by showing them some pictures of my trip during lunch.

But I do not want to continue blogging about my life if it is going to be broadcast about the office. I spend enough time foot-in-mouth around here without having written or photographic evidence accessible to anyone with an internet connection. No no. That pleasure is for you - people in my life who have no say about my employment status or popularity here in the booming metropolis of Becket, MA.

Now for the meat of the blog. (Meat of the blog? Really, Sarah?) I'm going to write about at least one "adventure" a week. And "adventure" is in quotation marks for a reason because true adventure-adventures around here are scarce. However, occasionally, exciting things do happen and I really enjoy sharing them. These instances shall be referred to as Category A. Real Adventures.

Category B will have far more entries I assure you, since more often than not, nothing particularly exciting is happening in my life and I don't enjoy that whether I'm blogging or not. So on Category B days, I will either invent exciting things to do and document them here or I'll simply document mundane things in a way that makes them seem like adventure and again, post them here. Oh Category B. How I love and hate you simultaneously already.

So that is all for now. Here's hoping for some Category A (but willing to accept some Category B!)

Love,

Sarah