Mickey the fake?

The Mouse family (Mouse IS Mickey's last name right?) apparently spans many generations.

I thought between the traps, the dog and blocking off their red carpet access to the basement, that we'd finally rid ourselves of Mickey and the Gang.

Wrong.

Yesterday, I used the guest bathroom and not only were there the usual turds all over the floor mat but, there were some new, highly scattered turds next to the toilet. These bastards bypassed the glue trap (after somehow taking a huge mouse dump on it and not getting stuck) on the OTHER side of the toilet and went around to crap behind the trash can. I could not believe it. (Perhaps this is my payback for the incident at Casey's last summer...that story is for another day.)

You'd think after this long dealing with these little assholes, I'd be used to it.

Wrong.

Today, I mentioned to Adam that perhaps a new trap is necessary, given the situation. He got a funny look and asked me to describe in a little more detail, exactly what the problem was and where it was located. By the time I was done, he was laughing hysterically. Naturally, I'm getting more and more pissed by the second, and am totally in the dark as to where the humor in this situation lies.

The "mouse turds" are dark chocolate cookie crumbs.

He ate cookies while taking a shit, tried to throw the package away (because, apparently, if you're going to eat cookies while on the toilet, they have to be 100 calorie south beach snack packs) and missed, therefore dumping cookie crumbs all over the floor.

I started to laugh, feeling pretty embarrassed for thinking they were mouse turds. Then I got mad again. Why, exactly, if you know you dumped cookie crumbs all over the floor, wouldn't you clean them up? Ugh. Men.

We did actually see a live mouse last night. Bella chased it into the fireplace. And so it continues.

P.S. Adam asked what I was writing about tonight, and I read this blog to him before posting it. He is STILL laughing about those damn cookies. The crumbs are still on the floor. And that's exactly where they're going to stay until he cleans them up.

P.S.S. Can I just say how satisfying it is to hit spellcheck and have its response be "no misspellings found?" GREAT!

WTF is going on around here?

Larry's day is always an interesting one. Seems I learn something new each week. Last week, we (surprise!) went to Super Sports in South Pekin. Who knew South Pekin was an actual town and not just a specific part of Pekin? Weird.

During this trip I learned of some new local landmarks. My husband likes to make fun of me since I get lost around town a lot. I've tried to explain to him that I need landmarks, not compass directions (Go north of county road 2300 E about 4 miles, blah blah blah. Who even knows what that means? Not gonna happen). Landmarks. When I say landmarks, I mean things such as, hey there's a 2 story white house on the corner. No, not the one with the giant wagon wheels, the next one. Turn there! Or, go past the McDonald's and turn left at the corner. (Sadly, all these are actual directions to my house. At least they no longer include, "turn off the paved road." Well, except when you turn into my unpaved driveway. Whatever.)

During our minivan ride to Super Sports, 2 new landmarks (which I hope to never pass for soon-to-be obvious reasons) were revealed, in all their glory.

1. The Old Deer Piss Farm
No, I am not making this up.

It did bring several questions to mind.
A) Where is it? (so I can be sure to avoid it)
B) Does it still stink?
C) Why is it the OLD deer piss farm? What's there now?
D) More importantly, who would PURCHASE, willingly, a farm known as ODP (old deer piss)? Well, formerly known as. It's like the artist formerly known as Prince, but now just a symbol. What would the Old Deer Piss Farm's symbol be?

Are you down with the ODP? Yeah you know me!

The second landmark, I am literally sad to report. I think this was it's actual name for some time, although no one (surprise, surprise) seems to know it's actual current name. Damn rednecks.

2. N-bomb Lake (I'll let you all take a guess as to which N-word)
Unfortunately, the use of that word is fairly prevalent around here. One stereotype about the country that, at least locally, is absolutely true. It's embarrassing for those of us who are civilized. When you hear that that's the name of a lake...where do you go from there? I was so blown away by the fact that not only was a lake once named this, but that everyone else in the van (except 1) seemed to know exactly what lake the person was referring to.

I had a whole diatribe regarding my thoughts on this "landmark" written here but, suffice to say, shock and awe pretty much sums it up.

There is nothing scarier than ignorance in action.

Sometimes I just sit back in amazement at where life has taken me. Never in a million years would I have imagined that I'd be sitting in a van full of people, driving through BFE-land being lectured on the longitude and latitude of something called N-bomb Lake. Just in case anyone doesn't believe that God has a sense of humor...

Side note: Oddly enough, the vast majority of locals voted for Obama. Just goes to show you how much they hated GWB's farm policies. Even stranger...some who voted for Obama still used that word in reference to him...which blows my mind since I wouldn't think you'd willingly elect someone to be your president if you truly believed they fit the literal definition of the word in question.

Whew, off the soapbox.

On another note, I opened the drawer under my dryer in a rabid hunt for dye magnets...only to find that I'd used them all and forgotten to buy more...and in their place was a drawer full of mouse shit. It never ends!!!
We blocked their entrance from the garage into the house, so now they're trapped in the ceiling and I can hear them running around all day and night. I HATE MICE. Those mofos are going down. I am sick of it. It's gross and loud and dirty in general. Yucko.

Mickey Mouse Slaughterhouse

That's right, I murdered Mickey.

You may recall my very exciting stories about the mouse living in our house. He has been captured, along with his previously camouflaged friend - the gray mouse, all in a 24 hour period.

The first mouse, Mickey, the one we actually knew about, believe it or not was pretty cute. I felt bad. If I had to say a mouse was cute, this one would be the one.

We caught Mickey, and thought our mouse debacle was over. WRONG!

As I was typing my blog yesterday, I heard the spring/door stopper make that springy sound as if something had just hit it. Given that I was in the room alone (I thought) and Bella was asleep on the couch...I realized there had to be another furry creature living amongst us. Frickin great.

Mickey Jr. was sent to be slaughtered just after midnight last night.

Life is good.

If you give a mouse a cookie...

he's going to ask for a glass of milk.

So what happens if you give a mouse some dog food? Our story goes like this:

If you give a mouse some Iams, he's going to shit all over the floor. If you clean up all his shit, he's going to get into your food container and shit all over the food. If he shits all over the food, he will have nothing left and suffocate. If he suffocates, you will undoubtedly find him in the container, dead, and have to clean it up. And, if you scoop him up and throw him in the burn pile with the rest of the garbage, burn him to smithereens, you will go to get your dog some food...and find MORE TURDS THROUGHOUT THE DAMN FOOD. And if you find more turds in the food, you will have to scoop out and throw away the rest of the food by hand, because the air-tight container will be too awkward to pick up. Welcome to my yesterday. Maybe I'll just stick with if you give a mouse a cookie...


Oh, and did I mention that my check engine light has started coming on in the middle of every tank of gas, for no apparent reason? Or that my A/C decided to either work on full blast or not at all? No, I guess not. But Peoria Toyota's service dept. sure was happy to hear about it, fix it, and charge me $737. Ethanol-based carbon build-up was the culprit, ruining 2 separate parts/valves but, hey, keep buying that corn! Actually, Peoria Toyota is so far superior to Fort's Toyota, that I was almost happy to spend that kinda cash, just to not have to deal with those morons in Pekin. Ahh, another blog, another story.

Lauren vs. Mason Country III: The Epic Battle Rages On

The first day the construction crew arrived, I scared them (and myself) by picking up a "shoelace" that turned out to be a mouse tail.

After they left, a SWARM, no, a PLAGUE of pecker gnats (unrelated to Randy, I think) just HAPPENED to show up. Adam said it was just a coincidence. I thought otherwise. I thought the crew stirred up all the dirt, sand and whatever else, and that's where the gnats were previously lurking.

Yesterday, the construction crew was back again. After they left this time, I noticed a trail of red ants marching in time throughout my master bathroom. Upon further examination, they were in every room of the house. Randy says it's the rain. I think otherwise. They stirred up the front porch to pour concrete yesterday, and I'm willing to bet that was the headquarters of Ants Anonymous, Mason County chapter.

This morning (thankfully BEFORE the crew showed up), I went to the garage to get Bella some food. As I made my second scoop into the AIRTIGHT SEALED CONTAINER, I scooped up a dead mouse. Screamed and swearing commenced. This time I only scared the dog.

My attempts to get Adam to come home and dead with the mouse mania were futile. I am sad to report that he laughed at me, said this is what happens in Mason County, there's probably more where that one came from, and to get a dustpan, scoop it up and throw it into the burn pile. Then he laughed some more.

I clicked my heels 3x, but I didn't get anywhere. Assholes.

Back to the "airtight sealed container," the only thing I can figure out is that it actually IS airtight, the mouse was in the container/last bag of dog food, and when we dumped the food bag in, it was smashed under 40 lbs of Iams Healthy Naturals Chicken, and suffocated.

I think this qualifies for FML. If you've never been to http://www.fmylife.com/, I HIGHLY recommend it. http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/ is equally outstanding.

WTF is going on around here?

First it was the infamous "shoelace" incident.

Yesterday, we came home from Larry's to a particularly foul smell lurking outside the garage. Bella must have noticed it too because, before we pathetic humans could see where the stench was coming from, Bella ran up to the garage door with a feral dead squirrel in her mouth. LOVELY.

Problem is, Adam threw the squirrel out into the tree line across from our driveway...not 5 minutes later, we were inside and the coyotes seemed REALLY loud all of a sudden. How much ya wanna bet they were in that tree line scarfing squirrel guts? Just great. As if the damn things weren't close enough. 2 weeks ago there was one in the ditch across the street. Those lurking little bastards!

Today, I am forced out of the house because there is yet another mouse problem . A new mouse is in town...visiting the INSIDE of my house...inside of my blanket closet, to be exact. So what do I do instead? Text while mowing the lawn at the old house. I think texting while driving is still ok if you're only driving a lawn mower. Keri says everything is legal in Mason County, so I think I'm ok.

This just in: Adam said I was being cynical. Apparently he has not quite mastered the art of shutting his mouth when he has nothing nice to say. Doesn't everyone want to hear (as soon as your husband walks in the door), "why haven't you cleaned the...I'll shut up now!" He's learning, this one. Slowly, but surely. Sort of like the little engine that could.
Back to cynical me.
After the previous comment about cleaning the raspberries smashed all over the refrigerator, he said I was being cynical. Since I hadn't said anything, I had to ask..."do you even know what cynical means? "

"No."

Welcome to my world.

What the hell was I thinking?!

Let me sum up the past few days and you can all be the judges as to whether I am cut out for this country lifestyle...

Thursday, my in-laws were visiting (with new trees to plant, so my universe pollution has been downgraded to a category go fuck yourself) and wanted to eat at Larry's (can you blame them?).

Off to dinner we went and during dinner, my wonderful, U of I educated, otherwise intelligent husband commented that since he turned 31 this year, it had been 10 years since he was legally able to drink. He mentioned that he'd tried to calculate how many beers he'd consumed over the last 10 legal years, and figured that if he drank a case a week, he'd end up with 48 cases of beer per year... When a few of us questioned how he came to that final total, he said (with a tone clearly indicating WE were all complete idiots) "well, 1 case times 48 weeks in a year = 48 cases of beer." I'm like yeah, buddy, we got that part...where did the 48 weeks come from? He had no idea. "Well, there are 4 weeks per month (still acting like *I* am the moron here), times 12 months in a year...48 weeks." This went on and on until finally his mother had to explain that the correct math would be 365 days divided by 7 days in a week, totalling 52 weeks in a year. He didn't believe her.

"How can there be 5 weeks in a month?"
"Are all the calendars wrong then?"
"I don't believe you!"
"What do you mean not 5 FULL weeks in a month?"
"How do you account for February then? No months have to have SIX weeks to make up for it, so how do you explain that?"
"What about leap years?"

Wow.

I have a sneaking suspicion that his parents may be writing to U of I and asking for some of that tuition money back.

Maybe it wasn't the excess "smart cells" that would cause his brain to burst....


Sunday, we went to Steak n Shake and got into a discussion about where certain fast food chains started out.

Adam: "KFC, you know that one's from the south. Probably like Louisiana or something."
Me: "Or Kentucky..."
Adam: "...ooooooh. Duh. I meant to say Louisville, not Louisiana."
Me: "Right."
Adam: "Don't tell anyone about this, ok?"

Sure thing, sweetie! :)

Fast forward to this morning. I knew we had some construction crews coming to get the area in front of our garage ready for concrete, as well as bringing white rock in for the rest of the driveway.

I heard them show up and went out to see who was doing what and if they needed anything. I remembered the dog was outside, so I tracked her down and tried to drag her into the house. Bella is known for finding all sorts of lovely treasures, especially since previous construction crews have left lots of garbage everywhere. So far she's found 6 week old chocolate milk still in the container (smelled awesome when accidentally run over w/ a truck. Who knew chocolate milk turns pink after awhile?), rusty nails, bricks, old detergent bottles and etc. Today, she ran up to me with a leather shoelace in her mouth. We don't let her bring garbage in the house, so I grabbed the shoelace, pulled it out, and wouldn't you know...it was not a shoelace.

IT WAS A DEAD FUCKING MOUSE.

I dropped the mouse, started screaming, cussing, didn't even realize the construction crew was staring at me until they were right in front of me asking if I was ok. Apparently I was wringing my hands and staring at the ground...still screaming. I can still feel that nasty mouse tail in my hand. GROSS! Needless to say, the construction crew had a good laugh over that one.

Unfortunately, nasty day was not over.

My car was in the way of the construction crew, so I tried to get the dog into the car and move it down the road. She got in, with the dead mouse back in her mouth.

I dragged her and the mouse out of the car, got back in and moved it alone.

She's been puking up undigested dog food for the last 24 hours, so I wanted to make sure she didn't eat anything else, or get in the workers' way, so I started to drag her into the garage, where she promptly started gagging...and coughed up ANOTHER DEAD MOUSE. 4 minutes of screaming and swearing later, the dog and I were finally mouse-free and indoors. She's been whining ever since. Tough shit, puppy.

Has anyone seen my easy button lately? I need it. Or a shot. Whichever you track down first. Please?!