4:55 p.m. 07 August 2002
Where did this sand between my toes come from? I’m sitting here at work, twiddling my toes in my stockings and trying not to fall asleep, and I’ve just noticed that there is sand between my toes. Sometime in the night I was visited by the ocean.
Sometime in the night the river was visited by the ocean too, judging by the looks of the water level. I usually walk down towards the river to get my lunch these days (it’s cheaper than the closest place), and so I’d noticed that things were looking a bit grim, with all the tubes the factories use for pollution exposed,and a large amount of uncovered gravel and unhappy-looking edge on the sides of the water.
But today when I walked down there, it was as if it were a different river. It must have risen three feet in the past few days. What was a shallow-looking, broad, muddy strip last week has become a cool, deep-flowing waterway today. Gone in their entirety are the gravel banks and the pollution-tubes (though I know they’re under there), gone the scraggly, wet roots of the bushes on the walls, and replacing them are ducks moving at incredibly fast speeds up a body of water that I now can see as the reason this city is the largest in Europe. It’s really lovely to look at, and it also made me realize that one interacts with a major body of water like this differently than one does with other water. Rivers, huge rivers, like the sea, are unpredictable. You can see why they have been accounted gods.
So the reason that I’m trying not to fall asleep today, as mentioned above – at least, the reason why I’m having to try harder not to fall asleep today (I nearly fall asleep every day) – the reason for today’s excessive sleepiness has four grey feet and a long tail.
Yes. A mouse. We have a mouse.
For me this is somewhat of a novelty. I have never Had a Mouse before, although I believe there may have been one living in my family’s basement at some point while I was in college. But mice in basements and mice in one-room studio loft flats are two very different things, and ours is of the later variety.
I’m saying “is,” because I’m relatively certain, given said Mouse’s performance of last night, that Carrie did not succeed in capturing him and getting him outside this morning. I hope she did, but, like I say, I doubt it.
This is, you see, an Alien Entity Mouse. Or perhaps a Warp Portal Mouse. Or maybe just a Magic Mouse. Whatever it is, it was definitely laying its best-laid plans last night, but contrary to expectation, they did not gang aglee.
The saga began late in the evening just after I had hung up the phone after talking to my mother. There I am, quietly cooking my dinner, when Carrie shrieks “Oh my god! Oh, my god!”
“What, what is it! Centipede invasion? Alien attack? Burning stove? Help!” I replied, calmly. No, not calmly. But less un-calmly than I might have, anyway.
“A mouse! I swear to god I just saw a mouse run behind the dresser!”
Carrie was by that time perched delicately on the tiny wall that separates our living room from our stairway.
“Oh my god! A mouse?! What do you do with a mouse?”
Call my mother, is what I did, while Carrie helpfully shouted advice like “it’s probably in my shoes!” and “Get it, or it’ll bite your head off!” from her position on the wall. At one point she nearly fell into the cactus on our bookcase.
Mama told us to scare it out with a broom and then put a container on top of it so we could scoop it up and take it outside, which would have been a good plan. If we could have found the mouse.
But by the time Carrie very carefully came down off the wall and I very very carefully pulled out the dresser . . .no mouse. None. Nowhere. We probably spent ten minute minutely, cautiously examining the dresser area in anticipation of Mouse, but there was none. Now, I should point out that there is very little furniture in our apartment. It is extremely easy to see things, such as mice, on the floor. So how the mouse got out from behind the dresser when we were both staring at it, transfixed, we did not know. What we did know was that this was clearly a Warp Portal Mouse, with abilities to transport itself far and wide.
“Maybe it went away,” I said. “Maybe it’s gone back to its own dimension.”
Carrie didn’t think so, but we both conceded the best bet would be to keep the small wastebasket (chosen mouse-catching apparatus) handy and continue to eat dinner. The mystery of the mouse, it seemed would remain unsolved.
Thirty minutes later, though, Carrie saw it again. I must admit I asked her several times whether it couldn’t have been a large dustbunny, or perhaps a shadow, but she swore it was a mouse. But yet again, said mouse was nowhere to be found.
We figured, eventually, that it must have, by some warp-portal technology, transported itself somewhere else in the apartment. We cautiously pulled out Carrie’s bed. No mouse. The table. No mouse. Unless it had gotten entirely across the floor without being seen, it had to be in the kitchen.
We pulled out the refrigerator. No mouse. We pulled out the stove.
I have to admit, at this juncture, that I have never screamed such a girly scream in my life. More of a shriek, really. Genuine, qualified eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! I am not afraid of mice, not really, but the excitement of the moment just, er, got to me. Plus, Carrie screamed too! Girly screams all round. Meanwhile, of course, the mouse got away. We spent the rest of the evening pulling out furniture, and I sighted it once behind Carrie’s bed (re-iterating, we live in a one-room apartment), but we finally had to give up late into the night when we still hadn’t caught it or seen it for several hours. We think it must live behind the sink where the pipe comes in, but we left all the furniture piled in the middle of the room in case it comes back.
In the meantime, I am very, very tired at work. But still, I suppose it isn’t every day you come across a Mouse of Superior Abilities like that. And I guess I never would have known I could scream so incredibly girly. Small prices to pay, really.
Where did this sand between my toes come from? I’m sitting here at work, twiddling my toes in my stockings and trying not to fall asleep, and I’ve just noticed that there is sand between my toes. Sometime in the night I was visited by the ocean.
Sometime in the night the river was visited by the ocean too, judging by the looks of the water level. I usually walk down towards the river to get my lunch these days (it’s cheaper than the closest place), and so I’d noticed that things were looking a bit grim, with all the tubes the factories use for pollution exposed,and a large amount of uncovered gravel and unhappy-looking edge on the sides of the water.
But today when I walked down there, it was as if it were a different river. It must have risen three feet in the past few days. What was a shallow-looking, broad, muddy strip last week has become a cool, deep-flowing waterway today. Gone in their entirety are the gravel banks and the pollution-tubes (though I know they’re under there), gone the scraggly, wet roots of the bushes on the walls, and replacing them are ducks moving at incredibly fast speeds up a body of water that I now can see as the reason this city is the largest in Europe. It’s really lovely to look at, and it also made me realize that one interacts with a major body of water like this differently than one does with other water. Rivers, huge rivers, like the sea, are unpredictable. You can see why they have been accounted gods.
So the reason that I’m trying not to fall asleep today, as mentioned above – at least, the reason why I’m having to try harder not to fall asleep today (I nearly fall asleep every day) – the reason for today’s excessive sleepiness has four grey feet and a long tail.
Yes. A mouse. We have a mouse.
For me this is somewhat of a novelty. I have never Had a Mouse before, although I believe there may have been one living in my family’s basement at some point while I was in college. But mice in basements and mice in one-room studio loft flats are two very different things, and ours is of the later variety.
I’m saying “is,” because I’m relatively certain, given said Mouse’s performance of last night, that Carrie did not succeed in capturing him and getting him outside this morning. I hope she did, but, like I say, I doubt it.
This is, you see, an Alien Entity Mouse. Or perhaps a Warp Portal Mouse. Or maybe just a Magic Mouse. Whatever it is, it was definitely laying its best-laid plans last night, but contrary to expectation, they did not gang aglee.
The saga began late in the evening just after I had hung up the phone after talking to my mother. There I am, quietly cooking my dinner, when Carrie shrieks “Oh my god! Oh, my god!”
“What, what is it! Centipede invasion? Alien attack? Burning stove? Help!” I replied, calmly. No, not calmly. But less un-calmly than I might have, anyway.
“A mouse! I swear to god I just saw a mouse run behind the dresser!”
Carrie was by that time perched delicately on the tiny wall that separates our living room from our stairway.
“Oh my god! A mouse?! What do you do with a mouse?”
Call my mother, is what I did, while Carrie helpfully shouted advice like “it’s probably in my shoes!” and “Get it, or it’ll bite your head off!” from her position on the wall. At one point she nearly fell into the cactus on our bookcase.
Mama told us to scare it out with a broom and then put a container on top of it so we could scoop it up and take it outside, which would have been a good plan. If we could have found the mouse.
But by the time Carrie very carefully came down off the wall and I very very carefully pulled out the dresser . . .no mouse. None. Nowhere. We probably spent ten minute minutely, cautiously examining the dresser area in anticipation of Mouse, but there was none. Now, I should point out that there is very little furniture in our apartment. It is extremely easy to see things, such as mice, on the floor. So how the mouse got out from behind the dresser when we were both staring at it, transfixed, we did not know. What we did know was that this was clearly a Warp Portal Mouse, with abilities to transport itself far and wide.
“Maybe it went away,” I said. “Maybe it’s gone back to its own dimension.”
Carrie didn’t think so, but we both conceded the best bet would be to keep the small wastebasket (chosen mouse-catching apparatus) handy and continue to eat dinner. The mystery of the mouse, it seemed would remain unsolved.
Thirty minutes later, though, Carrie saw it again. I must admit I asked her several times whether it couldn’t have been a large dustbunny, or perhaps a shadow, but she swore it was a mouse. But yet again, said mouse was nowhere to be found.
We figured, eventually, that it must have, by some warp-portal technology, transported itself somewhere else in the apartment. We cautiously pulled out Carrie’s bed. No mouse. The table. No mouse. Unless it had gotten entirely across the floor without being seen, it had to be in the kitchen.
We pulled out the refrigerator. No mouse. We pulled out the stove.
I have to admit, at this juncture, that I have never screamed such a girly scream in my life. More of a shriek, really. Genuine, qualified eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! I am not afraid of mice, not really, but the excitement of the moment just, er, got to me. Plus, Carrie screamed too! Girly screams all round. Meanwhile, of course, the mouse got away. We spent the rest of the evening pulling out furniture, and I sighted it once behind Carrie’s bed (re-iterating, we live in a one-room apartment), but we finally had to give up late into the night when we still hadn’t caught it or seen it for several hours. We think it must live behind the sink where the pipe comes in, but we left all the furniture piled in the middle of the room in case it comes back.
In the meantime, I am very, very tired at work. But still, I suppose it isn’t every day you come across a Mouse of Superior Abilities like that. And I guess I never would have known I could scream so incredibly girly. Small prices to pay, really.
Labels: being dumb, England, quotidian
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