trigger warning

    If you suffer from fear of mice, spiders, various creepy-crawlies, or hideous death, read no further. This is not the post for you. Yes, Dianne, I am talking to you.

    If however, you are interested in the stray dog story or the mouse wars, you can keep going. 

  As for the dog, Dianne and I left it food and water  for a few days, but there was never another sighting. I did, however, have a sighting of the horrible woman who forbade me to feed the dog. I was pulling away from the bowl after distributing more hot dogs, when she pulled past. I did not recognize her at first, because she was driving a different white truck. She, however, recognized me and my truck. I could tell by the malevolent and suspicious glare she gave me as we passed going in opposite directions. She was wearing scrubs and a nametag and will heretofore be known to me as Nurse Ratchett. I only regret that I was going too fast to read the nametag. She probably killed the dog.

   And, yes, I killed the mice. They died a horrible, painful death. But snap traps do not work for me—I snap my fingers, and the mice take the food without incident. So first I got one. Then I resealed the pipes around which I thought they might be entering. And then I caught the other (below), along with a lot of wolf spiders and other things I didn't look too closely at. And I am not sorry. I have cleaned up enough mouse shit and suffered enough electrical wire chewing in my lifetime that, however cute, I have no tolerance for a mouse in the house. Especially with refrigerators being unobtanium these days. The end.