Last night, my partner and I were exhausted. We had just put our son to bed after dinner out to celebrate the end of camp and the start of our one-week family vacation at the beach. We had gone back and forth about whether a staycation was more wise financially and, as you will read, I am grateful for the splurge.
As background, a few weeks ago, there was a mouse in our bedroom. It is an old, pre-war building and there has been much renovation in the various apartments around ours. Also, until the mouse sighting, we had kept gobs and gobs of health food in my bedside table drawer.
Instead of moving out and selling the apartment (a non-starter, according to my partner) or setting traps (barbaric), we immediately discontinue our health regimen (what other people might call chocolate bars of a wide variety and satisfaction level) and I get those sound wave machines that emit a piercing sound intolerable to mice, gerbils and dare-I-utter-the-word-in-the-urban-jungle-rat. Oh, and we will be getting a terrier dog next year when our son is 8. A mere coincidence.
So, back to last night, we are now comfy-cozy, reading in our bed. Ok, I exaggerate, the air was hot and still and my partner, ever-loving, knows I hate the sound of the air conditioner. She falls asleep. I do not. Being a restless sleeper in all cases, and not being able to put work out of my head in this particular case, I go to the living room and lie on the couch trying to clear my head. THUUUUDDD. I look over on the window sill of the dining room and I see a mouse. (G-d, I hope it was a mouse.) It must have been living in the crevice between our bookshelves and the ceiling (note to self: write a comment about that carpenter on Angie’s List).
I run screaming into the bedroom, waking up our son in the process, who didn’t really care about the commotion because the tooth fairy had left him $5 for a lower front tooth. Thank G-d for the priorities of children. (Two top front teeth cost $10 a piece; and on the Upper EAST Side, that same front tooth can run a parent $20.)
My partner comforts me and is supportive as I resolve to get me a rifle like Jed Clampett and shoot me something to put into Granny’s soup. I had tried to be nice, but I will not be toyed with by . . . varmints. And this mouse wasn’t scared or, if it was, it was too well-fed to move very fast. I cannot tell you how fastidious we are about taking out garbage and cleaning the kitchen every night, so we are VERY freaked out.
We lie down again in bed and my partner puts her hand gently on mine to comfort me. Then, she grips my hand and shrieks. There is a bird or a bat in our bedroom!! Our housekeeper sometimes opens the windows without putting in screens and some aerial varmint must have gotten caught in our apartment.
It is swooping all around — high and low — and we are both screaming. Our son yells, “what is going on?” and I want to yell, “the tooth fairy is shaking us down for all the cash your teeth cost!!” but even in these trying times, I am a good mother. So, I yell, “nothing sweetie, go to sleep now” as if on any given day at midnight my partner and I are shrieking in utter terror.
I am living in the movie that is the fusion of two classic horror flicks and it is called “Willard and The Birds“. I also star as the Wife of Chucky ready with knives to throw at mice and avian intruders.
The flying varmint hides in the crevice between the top of one of our bedroom bookcases and the ceiling. A pattern emerges. Jimmy Hoffa may be buried up there. Even the word crevice is starting to freak me out.
We leave the windows wide open, hoping that, at day break, the Thing in Our Crevice will fly out. But there are fierce lighting and thunder showers through the night, so we were all staying as roomies. Finally, exhaustion causes us to fall asleep, although I did think about wearing my sunglasses in case the bird was really from a Hitchcock movie.
Morning comes. I call my sister, who is doing spectacular acts of kindness (see other blogs) as soon as I think she is home from taking a sick former colleague to the airport. My sister is groggy and emotionally spent and I tell her I need her husband the bird nerd to rescue us from The Thing in the Crevice. eeeeewww. eeeeeeeeww.
She says that she’ll come over and help and then adds, helpfully, we’ll be like Ethel and Lucy. Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok, ok, my sister is thinking comedy and I am living a horror movie. I call my brother-in-law on his cell and ask him to come by after his errands even though we will be long gone, seeking refuge in a beach house. He is such a great guy. He is so willing to help and he will bring my sister along and I think, oh, good, now it will be Ricky and Lucy looking for The Thing in the Crevice. One person’s comedy is another’s tragedy.
They call my partner’s cell while we are on the road (I am the designated driver) to give us updates. My sister really wants if I will blog about this. Does she know me?
