Cat and Mouse and Boobery

That was quick. Boobery status from zero to high in about eight hours. We’ve been hanging out at home waiting for a load for a day and a half when we finally got the call that they had put a load on us around 2:00pm today. The shipper was right at three hundred miles away and the load was supposed to be picked up by 6:00pm. Oh and we still had to get the very last minute stuff done at the house, go pick up the trailer and get fuel before picking up, too. Serious boobery. I called and said there was no way we could pick up on-time and they grudgingly said, “Ok, just hustle on up there as soon as you can.”

So we rushed around the house doing the last few things you can’t do in advance like washing the few dishes we had used that morning, taking the last of the trash down to the dumpster, getting the food loaded into the truck, making sure everything was unplugged, throwing breakers, etc. Then we headed out toward St Louis. Other than stopping for fuel, we drove straight up here and got here at 8:00pm. That’s right at an hour before when I had told them we would be here. I almost always build one hour into our eta to take care of things beyond our control like traffic back-ups caused by construction or a wreck or something.

Anyway, we got here to the shipper and we were the fifth truck in line to pick up a load. I went to check in with the shipping office and tell them we were here. There were two other drivers standing there talking with the shipper when I walked up. Shipper told us he would, “get to us when he got to us and that we might as well go to bed cause it would likely be morning before they finished making the product we were waiting to carry.”

As we walked back out to our trucks, the other two guys said they had been sitting here waiting since noon. So all that rushing around to get out of the house immediately after Uriah called was completely wasted effort. Hell we could have turned up here at three o’clock in the morning and they still wouldn’t be ready for us. Who calls and schedules five trucks to pick up before you’ve even made the damned product? Boobery. It’s Boobery I say!

On a sadder note… the mouse. First I should say that I don’t really mind the mouse. Well I wouldn’t mind the mouse if it didn’t run around crapping everywhere. If it would just use Maggie’s potty pads and quit eating our stuff I would let it stick around — if only because he entertained Maggie so much once she figured out he existed. He would run through the room and Maggie would tear across the living room to corner him behind the tv or something. Then he would hide behind said piece of furniture while she would pace around trying to figure out how to catch him. I’m certain a couple of times I saw a little tiny mouse-hand stick out around the corner of the tv and flip Maggie the bird… and I’m pretty sure Maggie saw it too as that seemed to be when she would start whining and renewing her efforts to get to him.

Since the mouse was keeping Maggie entertained and the two of them together were keeping us entertained, I thought it might be cool to keep the mouse if we could just train it to use her potty pads. It could have been a good deal for everybody… but oh hell no that mouse wasn’t ever going to figure out potty pads no matter how many times I yelled the instructions to him as he sat behind the refrigerator. Or maybe he was just stubborn, I don’t know.

It didn’t really matter though, the mouse had to go. Now I am the kind of person who doesn’t kill things unless it absolutely has to be done. I’m not like a vegan or anything. Cause when it comes to a big old t-bone… well that just has to be done. And lest you think I just sit back and take advantage of our prancy-pants modern lifestyle and wouldn’t actually eat meat if I had to do the killing personally, let me assure you that I so would too. It’s a t-bone, people, a big thick juicy t-bone. And I’m not exactly a farm-butch but I’ve been around the block enough times to be able to do what needs to be done. I’m just saying.

Anyway… I didn’t want to kill the mouse. So I went out and bought one of those live traps. Set it all up and we went to bed. Got up the next morning and checked the trap. Didn’t see anything at first then picked it up to examine it more closely and noticed a tiny little note taped to the entrance end that said, “nice try, losers” written in soy sauce on a paper towel. Well I’ll be damned! The mouse was flying ME the bird. It was kinda funny when he did it to Maggie, but I wasn’t going to take that crap. I headed back to the hardware store.

I came home with one of those things you plug in and it creates a really high-pitched sound that is supposed to drive all rodents mad and make them leave the house immediately. Plugged it in and sat back with a big old smile on my face. Take that! Who’s the loser now, loser? All evening we didn’t see the mouse. I got even more smug over my victory. Then about 1:30am I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I whipped my head around only to see Dr Moriarty Mouse running behind the tv. He was running upright on his hind legs with his front paws held over his ears. When he came out the other side of the tv, I was able to get a closer look and realized that his front paws weren’t covering his ears they were holding his brand new miniature noise-silencing headphones in place while he ran. I was pretty sure his headphones were made out of material from one of my flannel shirts and that little strip that’s left behind when you take the cap off a Diet Coke. Damn you, Dr Moriarty Mouse! You can build state of the art mouse-sized headphones but you can’t figure out to use Maggie’s potty pads?

Well! That was the last straw. The next day I headed back to the hardware store and came home with Decon. Now… Decon works. It works every single time. It will work on Mr Too-Smart-for-his-Own-Good-Mouse. We set it out right before we left the house. Right about now he’s probably thinking that it was awful nice of us to set him out a big old tray of food before we left. Game, set and match, Mr Mouse.