dear sir: kindly vacate the hole behind the refrigerator

Often when I write about the characteristics of southern women, I find myself faced with diametrically opposing traits -- I've chalked this up in several posts to the mysterious duality of southern women. But today it occurred to me that, while I do wholeheartedly believe in said duality, I also think once in a while it is important to draw the distinction between things girls from the South say or do, and things country girls say or do.

I was deep in thought pondering this line in the sand this morning round about 5:30 (so deep, in fact, that I was dead asleep) when I was awakened by a tiny little clicky scratchy noise coming from the floor just beside my bed. I rolled over and turned on my lamp only to see a tiny mouse skidding across the floor into the opposite corner behind a bookshelf. At this point, I was wide awake, and since I'd already begun the job just a teensy bit right there in my room I decided to go and have a perfunctory early morning tinkle. On the way, I tossed out the orange peels that had been the source of the little mouse's delight, left there foolishly by yours truly the night before.

I got back into bed, turned off the light and tried to calm my racing heart down a bit so I could get back to sleep, but I hadn't been under the covers for two seconds before I heard his little scratching across the floor again. I flew out of bed, flipped on the light and I swear to you and Allah that little MF-er stared me straight in the face for had to be a solid minute. Or maybe just a second, things always move in slow motion in high-stress situations. You understand.

Then I saw a sight I shall never forget. That fat little mouse flattened his body near about to the thickness of a sheet of copy paper and slid underneath my door like I was Maxwell Smart and he was Agent 99.

After I got over the shock of that, I laid back down once again and revisited my earlier inner monologue on the different traits of Southern women and country women. And by that, of course, I mean that I fell right asleep and probably snored, but the point is this -- country women can deal with creepy crawlies and bugs and furry four legged rodent-types. Southern women do not.

I don't know what it is about that mouse that makes me want to jump onto a chair, point, scream and piddle a little bit down my leg, I honestly don't. As a kid, my brothers raised and bred mice and they were the cutest little things that ever lived, except of course for the fact that they were owned by teenage boys and were thus named delightful things like "Pestilence," "Plague" and "Fear." And also the fact that sometimes they inner bred and we would have mice babies in the morning and no mice babies in the afternoon. Ah, mother nature.

So now here we are with this mouse, and I being innately Southern and my roommate being very much not country, are left trying to determine how to handle this situation. I personally would choose a strongly worded letter with a polite first request to vacate the premises, with promise of a stern second notice. I have heard that mice do not respond well to this, so we'll probably seek other avenues. I just know this. We can set a mouse trap. I'll even put the cheese or the peanut butter or whatever on it and set it. But I have one simple question for you.

Who the hell is going to take care of that dead mouse? Because it sure as the day I was born is not going to be me, and I'm pretty sure my daddy is nowhere near here.

I suspect this is the reason they invented marriage.


cheers,
elizabeth