It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog post. A really
long time. I started this blog around 5 years ago when I was working my first
summer internship. I worked for a really great company with nice people (whom I
still play league softball with)(wait, is it “whom” or “who’?), and great
supervisors. When you’re an intern, typically you’re responsible for certain
tasks that no one in the company wants to do. Or, they’re tasks that would take
up too much time for a current employee who’s already working on a team, but
not enough time to justify a new full-time hire.
My position fell into the latter situation. I still liked my position, and was
challenged, but I would be lying if I said there weren’t days where I wouldn’t
have a whole lot to do. Because of
this, I’d have some time to think and make my life more dramatic than it really
was. So, I started this blog. I could turn the mundane things in my life into
short, funny little stories. And when I say mundane, I mean it. I had enough
material to write a short story about a coffee mug.
Since those first posts, I always wanted my blogs be more
than “so first I did this, and then we did this, and then this happened….”
bullet point view of my life. And even though I had a lot of material
(graduating college, finding a real big-girl job, my own apartment…), I was
never inspired to turn those things into short stories. Whenever I sat down to
write something, the post would turn into bullet points.
But now, due to some family circumstances, I’m in my very
own house, dealing with the random house-owning things that come with it. And I
have stories.
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Starting with a very fresh story. This happened roughly three hours ago so I apologize for blabbing on, I’m still a little traumatized.
Background: my next-door neighbor used to live in a nice
house. It was clean and well kept. At some point, it stopped being cleaned and
well kept, and turned into dirty and disgusting. It was dubbed the “garbage
house” for a reason. Nearly two months ago, it officially became an abandoned
home and started the process of foreclosure. And that’s how it sat. For two
months. During the hottest July we’ve ever had.
Two weeks ago, a half dozen men in hazard suits and masks
came to the house armed with dumpsters. They spent a whole day picking up the
garbage and moldy food, trying not to throw up or faint every 5 minutes, while I’m
sure dozens upon dozens of little critters fled their once-comfy homes.
Back to present day.
I have a grill on my deck that I have used faithfully during
these summer months. I grilled whatever I had; meat, veggies, sometimes even
fruit, and I did so most days of the week -- up until lately. I hadn’t grilled
anything for a few weeks, and still didn’t have the desire to tonight, but
something told me to open the grill anyway. I open the lid, peer inside…
There’s leaves, and old mitten, and holy s—t this is a mouse nest. Thank God
there isn’t any mi—Ahh!! The nest is moving! MOUSE!
Lid shut, run inside, windows and doors officially closed. I
sit at the kitchen table staring at my hands. What in the hell am I supposed to
do now? I try to force my heart rate slow down, and contemplate my options: #1
Turn the grill on… and deal with a really gross mess to clean up. #2 Scare the
thing out of the grill so I can clean up and let the grill burn off everything
else until it runs out of propane.
Option 2. I can do option 2. I think.
I put on my tennis shoes, jeans, and a long sleeve shirt and
go outside to find the longest twig in my yard. My plan is to poke at from a
distance until it leaves. I open the lid and ready my twig-sword. Ew ew ew,
there it is. OMG THERE’S ANOTHER. OMG THERE’S TWO MORE.
HOLY S—T THERE ARE FIVE FULL-GROWN MICE IN MY GRILL.
Lid shut, back in the house, and back to the kitchen table.
Why oh why can’t my dog turn into a cat for the night and
just take care of business?
Trained dog? Whatever. Useless is more like it. While I’m running in and
out of the house, she just stares at me with her tail waggin’ - "no big deal here." I can’t scare them out on my own, no
way. There’s too many – they’ll gang up on me. After a few unanswered calls
(THANKS A LOT, BTW), I call one of my neighbors.
“Hi, Fred, it’s Mandee. Say, I have a question for you. So,
I opened the lid to my grill just now and noticed there was a mouse nest and a
mouse. No big deal, I tell myself, I’ll just scare it out with this stick.
Well, turns out one mouse was actually five MICE, and I don’t think I have a
big enough stick to take them all on, so I was kind of wondering, as an
experienced homeowner, what the hell should I do?”
“…Well, I guess they just have to be scared out of there.”
“…”
“Would you like me to come over?”
“Yes, please.”
Wonderful, brave, retired, ex-vet, knight-like Fred arrives in a suit of
shining armor and gloves and walks up to my grill.
“So, you’ve got a family in here? [opens lid] Wow, would you
look at that.”
He begins to take apart the grate and the other pieces of
the grill as the mice scurry into the underbelly of the thing. Fred then grabs
the nest into a pile, and holds it up in the air. “Do you have something I can
put this in?” he says as one mouse does a very impressive swan dive off the
side of the grill. I grab a plastic bag while he continues to shoo the evil
things away.
“That should do it.” We light the grill, and any remaining
vermin flee for their lives.
We used to have a family of falcons or hawks (I forget
which) living in our backyard. They stayed around for a summer before moving on
to a new home. Besides the whole fear of being attacked thing, they were nice
neighbors. I miss them.
