There have always been ridiculous rumors floating around that husbands can make very rare and somewhat dim-bulb mistakes. The sorriest ones are usually predicated on a guy momentarily displaying the common sense of brick.
Example: Mid July, we decided that there was no longer a need for what remained of an overlooked backup stash of firewood.
The small stockpile had been decomposing for years and its weed-ensnarled remains hadn’t seen daylight since our, long-passed, pooch, Howard the Demented, was a diminutive pile of puppy fuzz with paws.
The furry tank was more timeworn than our ancient and battered lawn-tractor when he moseyed across the rainbow bridge, so I was amazed the residual wood hadn’t fossilized.
As I grappled with a couple of the larger fragments, a small avalanche of shredded paper and compacted grass tumbled to the ground.
I didn’t think much about it because it was obviously just an abandoned nest of some wee critters that decided to vacate the premises in search of a housing upgrade.
My mental misfire was not keeping my mouth shut about it.
Later in the day, as my love and I were sharing some coffee and discussing weekend plans, I absentmindedly mentioned the discovery.
Suddenly, a new ice age descended throughout the confines of our once cozy abode.
The silence was deafening as I gazed across the table trying to ascertain what had suddenly crushed our domestic karma and detected a look in my lady’s eyes that would have had an adversary wishing they were sporting Depends.
Before I get myself into deep guano here, let me explain that, normally, my bride is one of most magnanimous animal lovers in our galaxies of stars.
But, unfortunately, for the genre known as rodents, they don’t possess even a smidgen of enough charisma to make her cute-n-cuddly list but do qualify for tactical nuclear strikes.
In fact, she holds them in the same esteem as she did the saddle-ready cockroaches she tripped over while we were stationed in Texas.
The colossal creepy-crawlies skulking around the San Antonio area were suspect in the disappearance of a variety of neighborhood pets, adolescent farm animals, and a small herd of ill-tempered wild javelina. Rumors had exterminators employing shotguns to morph the heftier ones into compost.
Back to the current varmint issue.
My wife’s revulsion for rodents surfaced years ago when things froze so solid around here that one could almost walk across the bay and several mice decided that the interior of our abode would be a great locale to establish a vermin hostel.
The first time she spotted one of the mini critters dart across her kitchen, she made a rather boisterous remark about their lineage that would have caused hard core rappers to blush and went looking for my riot gun.
I, in turn, sought out standard spring-loaded devices and a jar of peanut butter.
The Jiffy approach quickly remedied the crisis and our casa, until recently, no longer served as a primo vermin campsite.
But, because I forgot to mention the abandoned nest, things are a bit tense at the moment because she wants to know where the little #^$!@*$ went and now keeps a bat next to her easy chair.
If one of those varmints scurries across the front room carpet, the whole area is going to turn into one vast “Whack-A-Vole” game.
I have three choices.
I can remedy her concern by dusting off the spring-loaded, attitude adjusters, and upgrade the bait offerings to gourmet gobs of Extra Crunchy Skippy.
Or, I can utilize live traps and set the invaders free to frolic with a pair of coyotes lurking in the nearby alders, dodge the soaring hawks and eagles or the weasel loitering beneath the deck begging for their amnesty.
My last consideration is that we may not have a potential problem after all.
We haven’t spotted a beady-eyed gnawer since one of them peeked around the wood stove and caught a glimpse Jane’s dark stare and the Louisville Slugger.
So, I’ll go with the “no immediate action required” option. With a bit of luck, it won’t be another dim-bulb decision.
Nick can be reached at ncvarney@gmail.com unless additional, lilliputian, fur bearing, annoyances show up. Then it’ll be about a week or so until he gets the moat around the cabin finished.
Update: It may be faster than that. Jane’s now looking into renting a backhoe.
