Mice are for Men

I like to think I'm a pretty handy girl. I have my own tool box and a black belt in Ikea furniture assembly. Hair balls in the shower drain, no problem (even when of the ridiculously disgusting variety). Removing unidentifiable objects from the refrigerator? Got it covered. And somehow I became my house's resident IT department.

Granted, I think single people should receive a 50 percent off discount when trying to buy a home (how am I supposed to afford the same mortgage that two incomes can?), but overall, I consider myself pretty self-sufficient.

Except when it comes to Mickey Mouse.

I live in a cute, charming house in a nice neighborhood in Arlington. There's just one little problem - we've been overrun with mice for a year. On the plus side, I wouldn't say we're infested. We typically only have one or two at a time...but it's all the time! Numerous phone calls to the exterminator have yet to yield results. Yes, there are now poison and traps everywhere, but the mice keep coming. Our handyman has been over every inch of the exterior filling in anything that looks like it might be an entry point - and every couple of weeks we still wake up to a lovely (read: incredibly gross) surprise in the kitchen.

Turns out, as independent as I like to think I am, I'm utterly incapable of dealing with dead mice. I tried - once - but the trauma just proved too great for me. While I'm our house's expert trap-setter, I have a complete meltdown if I have to deal with the results. When I attempted to remove the offending creature, with the aid of a shovel and grill tongs, the situation quickly deteriorated to the point of screams and tears, leaving me emotionally drained.

Which brings me to the theory that mice are for men.

These are not cute, cuddly creatures. They are nasty, disease-spreading, cookie-eating rodents who have no place inside the four walls of our house. Disposing of them should be the work of men - this is your chance to prove your manliness and ability to protect house and home. I've seen the state of the bathrooms that many of you use blissfully every day - manhandling this six-inch long pest should prove no problem for you.

And yet, when we called upon the male specimen residing in a separate apartment in our basement during one particularly disturbing encounter with Mickey this summer, he proved useless.

As usual, we had set traps the night before and when we woke up that morning, noticed one of them was missing. A quick e-mail chain to various offices established that no one had made the early morning trip to outside with a furry corpse.

"The trap must have gotten pushed behind the trash," we all agreed. Except, a thorough inspection of the kitchen that night revealed it was really and truly missing. As we looked around the floor in confusion, our attention slowly turned to the stove.

"A mouse couldn't possibly drag the trap, could it?" I asked nervously.

With a considerable amount of trepidation, I pulled the stove away from the counter and cautiously peered into the space I'd created.

"Ummm, ladies....found the trap," I said. "And it's been sprung."

Thinking this an ideal opportunity to contribute something in the clean-up department, I grabbed the specially-designated mouse broom and started to slide the little wood and metal device away from the cupboard wall so I could reach in and grab it.

Except...it was stuck. "Eeeek!" I screamed. "There's something on it!" Everyone gathered around debating what to do. Far braver than I, Lauren reached for the broom and tried to move the trap into the open again.

"It's not just stuck on something, the mouse is still alive!" She shrieked.

That did it - I was not cut out for this kind of work. Luckily, there happened to be a speed trap stationed right outside our front door that night. "Is this the kind of thing we can ask a cop for help with?" I asked, in all seriousness.

We concluded we weren't ready to look that helpless just yet, and instead went in search of Matt, our downstairs neighbor. He was happy to help us deal with the situation - but his version of help was simply to bang his hand against the side of the cupboard to scare the mouse out of its hiding place. No such luck, of course, and that was as far as Matt was willing to go on the chivalrous front.

Finally, Kimberley - a petite 5'2" former sorority girl - took matters into her own hands.

"This is ridiculous," she said. "Hold my feet - I'm going in." And with that, she grabbed the grill tongs (seriously, these things are useful for so much more than just maneuvering food) and threw half her body into the cavity between the stove and the counter.

"I've got it!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "Bag!" And we quickly handed over the makeshift shroud so she could toss everything inside and bolt for the door.

When she reappeared, the rest of us were in awe.

I guess mice aren't for men - they're for very brave women. Good thing too, since we caught another one last night.

Teletubby Trouble

I'm baaaaaack!

And I have more to write about than ever. For those of you who read this regularly (particularly my friend Julia's husband who was kind enough to complain the other day about the lack of new posts - good to know boys think my stories are as funny as girls do!), I'm so sorry for my absence. Between the holidays and work, it was difficult to find time to write, but never fear - the dating did not stop!

While there have been many adventures recently, perhaps one of the most interesting is the story of the Teletubby - and yes, the fact that he was dressed in such a way should have been a clue this would not end well. I met said Teletubby, yellow not purple - a very key distinction to note, on Halloween.

My friend Jamie and I had headed to Sign of the Whale in an effort to stalk Charlie (who everyone will be happy to know I have since cut off all communication with, but more on that later). When my efforts were not panning out, I turned to the nearest boy. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I'm happy as long as I'm at a bar and in costume, but someone fun to dance with always makes it that much more interesting - and all the better if his costume happens to be a great conversation starter.

Anyway, to skip to the more interesting parts, we exchanged numbers and went out for dinner a few nights later. It certainly seemed that the date went well - after we finished eating we grabbed a drink, and then lingered on the sidewalk saying good-bye (aka exchanging good night kisses - I know, ewwww on the pda). But then he never called!

And no, this was not a case of him waiting for me to get in touch as I texted the next day to see if he might want to do something later in the week. Clearly, he just wasn't that interested - which is fine, but why go to all the trouble of making it seem like you are? I mean, if I go out to dinner with someone and have no desire to see him again, you can bet I bolt out of the restaurant pretty quickly rather than suggesting another date.

Fast forward to December and Holiday Blizzzard of 2010 (16 inches of snow in 24 hours - enough for even this Minnesota girl), and I'd nearly forgotten about the Teletubby incident. As the DC area's snow removal services leave a little to be desired, most people were limited to walking places that particular weekend. In the true spirit of a snow day, my roommates and I gathered up all the Uggs and wellies in the house, pulled on our mittens and trekked to Carpool for one of the most fun Saturday nights I've had since I moved to the area. After a brief stint at Union Jack's, we returned to Carpool to finish out the evening before walking home.

As we flashed our ids at the bouncer, I did a double-take at the guy out on the porch - it was the Teletubby! Not only did he not call, he actually had the gall to show up at MY neighborhood bar - in a blizzard no less! This is not the same as the Corey situation (the bouncer at O'Sullivans) - the Teletubby lives a good 20 miles away, so I never really expected to run into him again, and certainly not in Arlington when the metro is shut down and the only thing moving were a few four-wheel drive vehicles.

I was so flabbergasted, I proceeded to share the entire story with the bouncer, including my absolute incredulity that the Teletubby could be there - albeit, out of costume. Fueled by a hard cider or two, my storytelling skills were just warming up, gesticulating included, when the guy walked inside with this bashful look on his face. I turned from the fascinated gaze of the bouncer (ok, it might have been more a look of amusement as he thought about how his friends were going to laugh when he told them about the "crazy" girl he met at work that night), and asked the Teletubby why he never called.

"I called," he said.

"Umm, no, you most definitely did not," I responded. And then returned to my friends at the bar, why the Teletubby moved off looking nicely chastened (this was not my imagination - even the bartender said he seemed pretty embarassed to have run into me).

Suffice it to say, by the end of the night I had made quite the impression on the bouncer, who now recognizes me each time I walk into Carpool as "the girl with the Teletubby story."

And nothing further from the Teletubby himself - but at the very least, he helped make the Holiday Blizzard of 2010 that much more memorable and continues to be good for a laugh among my roommates.