Turn the Crank

Just turn the crank and snap the plank and boot the ball right down the chute. Now watch it roll and hit the pole and knock the ball in the rub-a-dub tub which hits the man into the pan. The trap is set, here comes the net...Mousetrap!

I really do remember the most random things. I have a house guest. If all goes according to plan, he'll be on life support by the time I finish typing this. You ever have that moment when you think you see something move out of the corner of your eye, but don't want to look because you'll just feel stupid when it turns out to be nothing? That happened to me yesterday, but I looked because not looking is how horror movies start.

Of course it turned out to be nothing, so when I had the same moment today I tried to save face and be Neil Degrasse Tyson. It's just light reflecting off the window across the way. More than likely a car turned the corner and, with the sun being directly overhead, it bounced from the windshield to that unit and then into my apartment. The illusion of movement was no doubt caused by the fact that the car was in motion, thus the angle of reflection changed due to the curvature of the windshield.

Uh huh.

Thirty seconds later I remembered that my degree is in Business, not Physics, and I took another look. I saw my daughter's werewolf doll (don't ask) and rationalized that that was what I saw. I went to pick it up and my brain started talking again just as I bent down. You know, even though this is here, it doesn't answer the question of what it was that we saw moving. This isn't Toy Story. Toys don't move on their own. It could very well have been...

A damned mouse Usain Bolts across the floor. I jump back and that's when it gets weird. There was a cricket in my house yesterday and you would've thought it was a langolier or something. I hauled ass to get the can of Raid from the closet and wielded it like a proton pack. I don't do bugs.

But when I saw the mouse, I jumped back...and immediately sealed off all the rooms in the house. I didn't want him to have anywhere to escape the beat down. When I was ten we moved into a crappy apartment in Rosedale. We only lasted two months there because everyday we caught at least two or three mice on a trap. I got over my fear of them real quick. Bad news for Ben.

I grabbed a broom and started pushing furniture around trying to find him. I know I looked insane to any passersby looking in my window. Picture a savage carrying a spear as he slowly approaches a boar or something. That was me with the broom. Call it my mouseketool. I searched high and low but couldn't find the bastard. So I...

***Update***
I got him.  No point in telling the rest of the story, but I'm too tired to write about something else. Right before I started typing this I put down two glue traps. I just heard one dragging along the floor. I'm about to send Jesus a pet.

[Two minutes later]
Yep, that was him. I don't know if I should sing Ben or Gone Too Soon.

Hey, why not both?