- Case -

[the mingo]

I got rats in the walls
happens every autumn
I lace the place with poison
drop it down the holes where they've chewed through the walls

they feast then take it back to their nest
where they feed the leftovers to their kids
thank God for natural harmony & a mother's instinct

not my fault either to top it all off
if they stayed outside where they belong
instead of invading my home
they wouldn't bring any agony on themselves

- case closed.

[sasha]

yeah, man
with me it's squirrels in the attic
flyers
cute little bastards,
but destructive as hell
don't dare use poison
not with a perpetually hungry dog in the house
and I don't want them dying inside
where I can't get at them
so I set out jawz rat traps
laced with peanut butter
they don't always kill 'em
but hold 'em for me until I can finish the job
drop 'em into a bucket of water
trap and all
I toss the sodden corpses outside
as a warning to the others
but they come in anyway

[the mingo]

We got flying squirrels over here on the Plateau but they are extremely secretive so much so if you see one you can count yourself blessed - you would have to get back into the woods, I mean back and sit still as a zen monk for at least an hour or so then you might see one - mice and rats the prob here - especially rats - place I lived before I made an accidental discovery about mice & water - I had left a bucket about a third full of clean rinse water on the cellar stairs intending to empty it but forgot - bout a week later I opened the cellar door and found the bucket with 8 drowned mice floating in it -
it made sense - in the winter the problem is not food, which they have stuffed away all over but water - all their food is bone dry and they get powerful thirsty - the water in the bucket drives them crazy and they fuck around until they fall in and eventually drown - it took me about 3 weeks to clear that old house of mice - I stopped counting at 72 - after that every time I heard a new mouse exploring I smiled - not even Stephen King could describe that smile - that was the place I lived before and it was some west of Tug Hill Plateau - over here it's rats and I don't have a cellar hence the poison - I hate meeses but I truly detest rats

Thx for reading

[sasha]

The flyers are nocturnal, maybe why they're so scarce. And yah, got mice, too...

Warning: Gross Mouse Story Follows.

I live pretty frugally, but there are a few food items I'll splurge for. Good coffee - we've got a local house that roasts and grinds premium beans. I'm fighting the urge to call it "artisanal coffee", lest I be labeled as a pretentious D-bag. Good olive oil - virgin, or extra-virgin if it's priced right. I keep a big can of the stuff in a cupboard, from which I refill a smaller bottle I bought years ago.

One day it came time to refill the little bottle, and I discovered that mice had gnawed away the plastic spout of the big can and left little offerings on top of it. The can was 2/3 full. I hesitated - maybe I can use it anyway, I thought. I'll be heating it up, right? Kill any bacteria, right? Might be okay...

Then I got hold of myself. No way, I said, of course I can't use it, mice have pooped in it fer Chrissake. It broke my heart, but I took the can outside into the woods and started pouring it out onto the ground.

Then all of a sudden the flow stopped, even though there was still a lot of oil still in the can. I tipped it right-side up to see what the problem was, but the smell coming from the can told me. The mouse who'd chewed the spout off had fallen in and drowned, and had been marinating for some time in the very oil I'd actually contemplating using anyway. It takes a lot to gross me out, but my gag reflex was right at the surface when I thought what it might have been like had I actually used that oil to saute my veggies that night........

[mnaz]

Yeah, I had rat issues at the old desert gold mine when I camped out there for a couple months. Supposedly, those bastards even chewed through a Jeep's distributor wires just before I showed up. Luckily they stayed away from my rig; it must have had a different wire flavor. The guy who hired me said to use the 5-gallon bucket-of-water-and-ramp-and-peanut-butter-bait rat trap method, and I did. Well, at least for awhile ...

[WIREMAN]

In the hood we used mothballs under our hoods to keep threats out.....

[saw]

the rodent thing is so relentless....in every single relationship i ever had it was "the man's job" to deal with them....talk about sexist..haha..
but I didn't mind it anymore than it was also my job to unstop the toilet and fix the car....there was at least some sense of a division of labor, even though I didn't get chose which jobs I wanted....oh well...harmony is a beautiful thing...but let me not digress...rats and mice are the most determined fuckers I've ever seen...worse than my brother-in-law trying to convince me Trump is a good guy....mostly mice on the inside, and rats trying to get in most seasons, though a few rats have made it in the last forty years....saw a baby rat outside last night followed him to see if I could see what he's been up to....soon as he felt I was getting too close he charged me...bounced off my boot...little bastard thought he could take me...and so it goes...the never ending saga of man vs. mouse...

[sasha]

I've been in a few relationships where the "(stereo)typical" job roles were reversed. I was a bachelor longer than most, and learned not only to cook but to enjoy it. When I got married, we split cooking duty 50/50 until she got pregnant - then I became the full-time cook. Long after we split, I had a gf who loved working on her car - which I detest. We both acknowledged it was a bit odd for me to be cooking dinner while she tinkered under the hood. One night when a bat got into the house, though, the labor split along traditional lines. Her job was to cower under the covers while I did mine, removing said beast from the premises.