Oh, they are around. Just because we are dealing with such stressful issues as a pandemic, panic news brought to you every night, heat and humidity, doesn’t mean they haven’t gotten the message.
It strikes fear deep in every housewife’s bones. You know that slight movement out of the corner of your eye. You wait. There it is again. Your common variety, “I’m living in your house” mouse.
For me, that means a Valium in the morning, a drink by noon and no question about it, a For Sale sign before sundown. These steps have to be taken before you catch yourself in bed, lying In the dark and hear the patter of little feet. A lot of little feet.
Don’t even bother calling 911; break ins, car accidents, riots and serial killers, they can handle. But the very word mouse has been known to make an entire precinct to call in sick with the flu. The whole time they are on the phone telling you it’s not in their jurisdiction, you know they are standing on their chairs.
No, this job calls for a neighbor. And not just any neighbor. The profile reads like this: female, over 40, has raised five or six kids, all bottle-fed and toilet-trained by one year, not embarrassed to wear a blue bowling shirt to a wedding, has never suffered from depression and her favorite drink is Dewars scotch.
Well, I saw IT the other day. You have to be careful not to use the word mouse too often because even the computer, when seeing this come across the screen, will shut down and try to move to a higher ground.
I called my profile neighbor. She arrived with three traps. One was the size of an NFL player’s shoe. Believe me, if I had to trap something that big, the house definitely would be on the market.
We went to work like Inspector Garret and Danno from the television series “Hawaii Five O.” Drawers were pulled open, doors were ajar, closets were rummaged and still no sign of IT.
Oh, we took some prisoners. There was a black sock that had the unfortunate luck of falling off a shelf. We beat it to death with the proper screams. And then there was the brown Teddy Bear lying under the bed who had his eyes poked out. Still no sign.
I was ready to surrender. Maybe, IT had left. “Are you kidding me?” She answered. No, she assured me, in a case like this, you have to have a body. Hard evidence. A habeus corpus.
The rest of the day, I wore spiked heels, so it would at least run under my feet. I checked the phone every half hour to make sure it was working and filled the car up with a full tank of gas. I was tanned, rested and ready, like former President Nixon on his second run for the presidency.
It wasn’t until later that night, lying in bed in the dark, I heard it. A loud snap. I know I felt guilty about all of this. As I was putting yellow tape around the crime scene and called my neighbor to report the news. We had the evidence. “Book him,” she said. Now, what were the other things I was worried about?
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Nancy Katz has a degree in creative writing and is the author of the book, "Notes from the Beach." She has written the column Around Town for the Cape Gazette for twenty years. Her style is satirical and deals with all aspects of living in a resort area on Delmarva.
