Funny Stuff
My husband and I purchased an acreage several years ago. The first winter there, we heated the house by wood, using the attached garage as a wood shed. Every morning Dan would get up at 4:00 a .m. to start the fire and then head o to work. Heating a home with wood takes some skill, foresight and a lot of work. Storing the wood in the garage just seemed so convenient and we thought we were very clever to be able to chop wood in a warm, dry place. Our cars were left outside to accommodate the excellent wood supply we had built up prior to winter; what we did not realize was that the local mice also liked the convenience.
One morning Dan got up and began his usual routine while I was happily sleeping in a nice warm bed. Suddenly I awoke to Dan yelling, “bring Cindy! Bring Cindy!”
Cindy is our cat from the city and actually was not that impressed with being a country cat. “Anita! Bring Cindy—now, please!” I was annoyed by this time, thinking, what is wrong with that man! I went downstairs to find Dan running around the basement with a broom, chasing two mice! He had a growing look of terror on his face as he kept smacking the floor like a dragon slayer. “Where’s Cindy!” he yelled in my general direction.
I ran upstairs, grabbed our sleeping city slicker of a cat and hustled back down. Dan dropped the broom, snatched up Cindy and resumed the chase, holding the cat above the mice as they fled. Just as he was ready to launch his cat grenade upon them, the mice ducked into a hiding place, leaving Dan yelling at me for not stopping them. I of course yelled back that I didn’t actually know how to stop a mouse! We finally calmed down and decided to leave Cindy in the basement to deal with the mice in a cat-like manner. Thanks to Dan for having provided such a fine vantage point during the chase, Cindy had the advantage of at least knowing what a mouse looked like now. The following Saturday we moved the wood pile outside and vowed to get a gas furnace in the spring.
The horror of the mice has continued to haunt Dan though, Since his precious Corvette convertible is back in the garage, he has installed a trap line of mouse snares around and under his car, which would put any mine field to shame. One night we were awoken by our house alarm going o at 3:00 a.m. A phone call from the alarm company quickly followed, informing Dan the garage had been violated via the side door. But that’s another story...unfortunately involving the same broom and our transitioning city-slicker country cat.