House Guests
Dec. 21st, 2002 09:44 pmEvery once in a while we get some mice in our apartment. It's never been a serious infestation, and our response follows a predictable pattern. First, my wife demands that I get some traps, but she doesn't want to kill the poor mice, so she demands that I get the no-kill traps. These traps are very humane because they don't work. Eventually, she decides we need to escalate the conflict, so she has me get the snap traps. These work, but she feels consumed with guilt every time I kill a mouse. Ideally, I would simply not tell her when I dispose of a dead mouse, but then she would still worry about the live ones.
After the most recent round of mouse sightings, my wife decided to call in a specialist: Moshe Katz. Moshe Katz is, in fact, a cat, named after a friend of a friend named Moshe Katz. Moshe Katz the cat normally lives uptown, but his person is going away for a while, so we offered to look after him, "so he wouldn't have to be alone."
This is not the first time we have hosted a cat, and Moshe seems to be settling in nicely.
Things have taken a turn for the disgusting this evening, though, as my wife looked in our bedroom and saw an unacceptably large cockroach on her pillow. I swatted the bug to the floor, and, fortunately, I was wearing big, stompy boots, so that cockroach is now with his ancestors. Cockroaches are a new problem for us, though, and I ran out and bought some bait traps. Monday we will inform the handyman of this latest development. Fortunately, we were generous with our holiday presents to the building staff this year, so it will hopefully get dealt with promptly.
Finally, I'm just feeling icky. For over a week, I've had low-grade fluish symptoms, and they've gotten worse since Thursday. This happens to me a few times a year, so I'm pretty sure I'll get over it, but I nearly passed out at the gym the other day, which sucks.
After the most recent round of mouse sightings, my wife decided to call in a specialist: Moshe Katz. Moshe Katz is, in fact, a cat, named after a friend of a friend named Moshe Katz. Moshe Katz the cat normally lives uptown, but his person is going away for a while, so we offered to look after him, "so he wouldn't have to be alone."
This is not the first time we have hosted a cat, and Moshe seems to be settling in nicely.
Things have taken a turn for the disgusting this evening, though, as my wife looked in our bedroom and saw an unacceptably large cockroach on her pillow. I swatted the bug to the floor, and, fortunately, I was wearing big, stompy boots, so that cockroach is now with his ancestors. Cockroaches are a new problem for us, though, and I ran out and bought some bait traps. Monday we will inform the handyman of this latest development. Fortunately, we were generous with our holiday presents to the building staff this year, so it will hopefully get dealt with promptly.
Finally, I'm just feeling icky. For over a week, I've had low-grade fluish symptoms, and they've gotten worse since Thursday. This happens to me a few times a year, so I'm pretty sure I'll get over it, but I nearly passed out at the gym the other day, which sucks.