I shouldn't have insulted my apartment management. I'm now cowering on my couch after spotting a mouse hopping around my stove, no doubt planted there by the visiting repairman this morning who didn't like his timeliness questioned.
So I'm trying to return to my filthiest memory, something that will make me feel better about sharing an apartment with vermin. And this is what comes to mind.
As a reporter, I saw a lot of awful things: mangled and decapitated bodies in car wrecks, gruesome autopsy photos at murder trials and municipal budget hearings. One assignment particularly sticks out, however.
With my work phone number printed in the paper every day, I got all sort of, let's just say, interesting ideas for stories to pursue. A lot of the times, the people knew me or my family because I had grown up in the area. One in particular was an older woman speaking in a thick Southern drawl, telling me that I had known her grandson in the Cub Scouts and that she wanted my help in finding two of her other grandchildren, given up for adoption by their estranged stepfather in Iowa. I guess she had heard about our vast Des Moines readership. She nearly made a grave error by saying she was reminded of me when watching "Barney and Friends" episodes with her grandchildren, in that I looked like the obnoxious, mugging blond kid (also named Michael) in the show, but my editor and I decided we'd let that unintended insult pass.
The photographer and I drove out to her trailer in Jones Creek, and the second we entered, the smell hit us: a mixture of mold, cat excrement and who knows what else. Dirty dishes lined the kitchen and den as cats writhed all over the furniture. The photographer and I tried to find the cleanest spots possible on the couch to chat with the woman, who was largely unable to walk because of her weight. I asked questions as best I could while I watched the photographer try not to gag. At one point, we saw a huge roach scuttle across his notepad as we exchanged anguished looks. After an excruciating 20 minutes or so, the task was done.
As it turned out, the interview paid off. Grandma reconnected with her grandchildren within a few days thanks to step-dad's acquiescence, and I quietly said thank the Lord when my editor allowed me to do the follow up story by phone.
OK, I'm feeling better. The mouse seems to be gone, hopefully having climbed down the stovepipe into the basement where he belongs. Meanwhile, I know what I'm doing this weekend! Scrub, scrub, scrub. And maybe getting a few hundred cats.
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5 comments:
I'll never forget my first mouse sighting. I never realized how many strange variations of the word "Ack!" I would be able to spontaneously utter given the right circumstances.
This is only my second in a year -- and the other one was tiny and near death, so I guess things could be worse.
I have to say, I'm a big fan of killing the little fuckers with poison. I watched one of the critters JUMP a trap. That's right. They learn! They're almost smarter than members of our current administration.
I usually get the glue traps and regret it. As much terror as the little beasts put into me, it inevitably will turn to pity when I see the poor things stuck to the paper. But they're cheap, and so am I.
a little trick i learned in brazoria county... put a little food in a waste paper basket, then pour in a beer or two. the poor devils get in, but cant get out....at least they drown happy, we suppose. Usually best not to check every day, since I figure it could take a while.....I at least hope that folks can get a beer down there now...when I was a boy, you had to drive all the way to Bay City to get a beer(in a paper sack), then try to navigate home.
this will also catch quite a few roaches too, since they, you will remember, are often larger than mice down there.(can you here their wings in your dark bedroom again?)
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