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At the end of this month, I will have completed four years living in my little bungalow in the wilderness. One thing that amazes me about the last four years is that I've never encountered any wildlife inside the house. At a place where I used to live in town, I once found a gray mouse sitting next to me on the sofa. Since I'm surrounded by woods and fields here, I've always half expected something similar to happen.
The reason it hasn't happened isn't that I keep the house so clean and tidy that vermin aren't attracted. I'm no housekeeper, as I've often freely admitted. I hope to do better, but I've been hoping that for nearly four years now, so the prospect isn't good. Still, I rarely have any bugs, except the spiders that make their homes in the unreachable heights of the ceiling. No roaches, no ants, and definitely no mice.
Even more cluttered than the house is the garage. I don't know half of what goes on out there, except that spiders run rampant there, even more than in the house. D.J. was here the other day, admiring my garbage can (don't even ask), and he pulled his hand back and said, "You have a little bit of a web there." Yeah, kid, I do. And there and there and there.
Last night when I drove up after leaving the party, my headlights revealed the silhouette of a rat scampering across the back wall of the garage. It made me shiver a bit, but it didn't surprise me. And I know it's not alone. It almost makes me want to clean the place out, but in another way it makes me want to leave things alone.
Obviously, today being Sunday and all, I didn't do anything close to work that didn't involve typing. The same items that didn't get crossed off last week's to-do list are untouched again on this week's list. I'm trying to decide if "clean the garage" is going to make it onto next week's list. It probably should, but it probably won't. |
