I have a mouse scream.
It’s not one of those cute girly ones like in the movies or the cartoons. For one thing, I sing second alto, so I don’t do much high-pitched shrieking, unless I’m on a prolonged angry rant, at which point I also spontaneously code-switch and my angry Black woman from the south side of Chicago also comes out.
No, my mouse scream is lower, more guttural, followed closely by the ridiculously elongated calling of my husband’s one-syllable name. He’s the one who let me know I have a specific mouse scream.
And unfortunately, he’s heard it already this season.
For some reason, because of climate change, the ever-present digging up of the streets around us, or living in a house that’s more than 100 years old, with all the issues that implies, the mice, that I already know can squeeze into holes the size of a dime, have made their appearance early this autumn.
So we’ve made our yearly call to our exterminator, whom I have on speed dial because we’ve developed a friendship over the years of fighting the vermin that try to take up residence.
I don’t do vermin. I don’t mind spiders so much (I learned on Paula Poundstone’s podcast that we’re never more than four feet away from a spider, and surprisingly that didn’t freak me out).
But arachnids aside, I don’t like creepy, crawly insects and rodents who wear giant clown shoes as they scurry around inside the dropped ceiling in the basement. Don’t let anyone tell you different, there’s no such thing as “quiet as a mouse.” They actually do squeak, and you can hear them running around, and they leave tiny little mouse turds, which can make you sick to your stomach, both literally and figuratively.
And don’t get me started on the other bugs that have decided to come in and nest up for the long winter ahead. I want them dead and gone too.
So Gary, my exterminator, comes in, sets out toxic gel for the bugs, and poison for the mice in those triangle boxes that apparently they go crazy for. He says, unlike D-Con, which actually thins their blood so they look for heat as they internally bleed to death, the stuff he uses gives them a hangover so they make their way outside before they die.
Of course they don’t always make it, and then we’re left with that sour milk smell, inevitably followed by the appearance of blow flies, meaning, yes, something has died in the ceiling. And we (meaning the exterminator, or my husband) have to find and remove the corpse.
Then there was the time my beloved and I came home to discover one in its final throes. My husband went to finish it off, but it took off in a last-ditch effort and we spent the next 15 minutes moving furniture to find it and, well, you know. We’re hardly Bonnie and Clyde, so that wasn’t one of our better date nights.
Here’s the thing I really fear — and no, it’s not that a mouse will run up my leg, although that happened to a work colleague of mine at a previous place of employment with a huge mouse infestation.
My fear is that the early arrival of vermin is a signal that a tough winter is ahead. I have absolutely no scientific knowledge to back this up. But I start to worry when I see skunks and squirrels getting fatter and fatter as the summer moves into the fall. I guess I believe that they, and Mother Nature, know something we don’t know.
And that means that when we’re all trapped inside for our first full COVID-19 winter, it’s going to be a battle of who survives as we share our space with those who don’t pay rent, or contribute to the household in any way. Children and pets provide love and companionship. These nasty vermin just provide aggravation — and we’re already aggravated enough.
So I’m getting aggressive early. The first bug, the first mouse, merits a call to Gary.
It’s going to be a long winter, I’ll be damned if I spend any of it listening to nasty little furry creatures, scurrying around in clown shoes.
Cheryl Charles can be reached at [email protected].
