Chicago Overcoat

For three nights I tried to catch the rat under the sink. The first night I set one mechanical rat trap. The rat took the bait and left the trap as if he had never been there. The second night I reset the trap and laid two sticky board traps along with the mechanical trap. The rat took the bait off of the mechanical trap and although he got stuck on the sticky board trap, he managed to escape by carrying the sticky board trap with him to his lair and pulling himself free. Saturday night I again laid down the mechanical trap and two sticky board traps under the kitchen sink, all baited with the rat's favorite food, rye bread. It was around two in the morning Sunday, that I was awakened by Chandler at the bedroom door, making a crying sound. I stepped out of bed just as I heard the loud snap of the rat trap under the sink. This awakened Bette and it was now an all out assault. Chandler in the kitchen pawing at the cabinet door and Bette in bed going crazy while being restrained by Mark. I stood in front of the kitchen sink listening to the thumping and thrashing going on inside the cabinet. With one arm I pushed Chandler away as I gingerly opened the door. There it was, a very large, very upset, very disgusting rat, stuck between the two sticky board traps. The sight of the rat enraged Chandler as I fought him off while reaching for one of Mark's kitchen tongs, my weapon of choice with rats. I reached into the cabinet with the tongs and grabbed the squealing and flailing rat. Those sticky board traps work real nice. They caught the rat just as promised. The only problem is, what do you do when you're standing there in your underpants with a squiggling rat at the end of the tongs? Here's what I did. I grabbed two plastic shopping bags, and with Chandler jumping up trying to snatch the rodent, I shoved the rat and the sticky boards into one of the bags. I then double bagged it and tied it in a knot, which I then threw into the garbage can outside. But it was not dead, far from it. I could hear it in there slamming around and trying to escape. Six hours later, when I got up to walk Chandler, it was still banging around in there. So I took one of the bug bombs that I bought to fumigate the shed, and threw it in there. One hour later it was all over. I feel kind of bad. I really didn't want the rat to suffer, but I did not invite it into my house and if it were a good house guest he would have put his neck in that snapping mechanical trap, ending all the drama. Anyway, the manufacturer of the sticky board traps should include means of disposal, like little cement boots or a Chicago overcoat.

Vermin's Hermits

Around midnight I turned off the television and rolled over in bed. Not but a moment later I heard a scuffling out in the kitchen. I took a quick roll call, Mark, Chandler, Bette, and me, all accounted for and in the bed. So I grabbed the flashlight and went to investigate. Of course the dogs bounded out of bed with me and when we got to the kitchen they both went for the same spot. The dishwasher. I flipped on the lights and I could hear it, a rodent under the dishwasher. I found a rat trap in one of the cabinets, wadded up a piece of bread and stuffed it into the trap's bait holder. I then set the trap under the sink. First thing in the morning I opened the cabinet under the sink and found that the rat had been there. Somehow it had retrieved the bread bait without triggering the trap. So I will repeat the process, but with a piece of goat cheese this time. It's stickier and I think it will cause the trap to snap shut on his filthy neck.

The rat is not the worst vermin that I have confronted in the last few days. Two days ago I opened the cabinet above the sink and was confronted by a Palmetto Bug, which is the Florida name for super giant cockroaches. I freaked out. That is one of the reasons I went to Home Depot the other day. I needed some giant cockroach killer.

Last night I emptied out the cabinets and cleaned all the shelves. I then was able to figure out where the beasts were coming from. Apparently there was a nest behind the cabinet, between the cabinet and the wall. The front door to their nest was a small opening in the seam on the back of the cabinet. So I took the can of roach spray that had a handy nozzle on it so that you could stick it into small holes, and blasted away through the front door of the roach nest. Almost immediately giant roaches started jumping out of the hole, landing in the sink like jilted lovers leaping off the Golden Gate Bridge. But that is not the most disgusting thing about this incident, not even the one that was crawling up my leg disgusted me as much as the sound. From behind the cabinets was the sound of clattering. It was giant roaches running around, flipping around, and in the throes of death. It sounded like a room full of miniature poodles with long toe nails running around on a tile floor. Eventually the sound of the dying roaches subsided, which meant that now I could give all my attention to our other visitor, the one under the sink. Ah Florida, the Sunshine State.

All roach photos are actual roaches that lived behind my cabinet.

Wednesday Afternoon at Home Depot

I have good reasons for not wanting to step foot into a store with Mark. I go to a store to buy what I need, which I already know that I need before I even leave the house. Mark goes into a store hoping. He hopes he will find something fun to buy, or on sale, or some kind of gadget that he is sure will come in handy. He might even buy the item that he went to the store for in the first place.

Yesterday I had a list of things I needed from Home Depot. I had just found the cheapest dimmer switch I could find (I'm selling the house) and was heading down the long central aisle that separates the front of the store from the rear when Mark says, "I want to look at something over here. I'll catch up to you."

"Fine, I'll be in the lock aisle."

So I made my way across the store to look at door locksets. Not satisfied with what I saw, I turned and went looking for Mark. Back up the central aisle towards where I had left Mark. No Mark back there, so I turned around and retraced my route to the lock aisle. No Mark to be seen. Back and forth three times, looking left and right up and down each aisle. No Mark. Only one thing to do, go to the checkout and wait in the car. I found an open self check-out and pulled the first item out of the cart.
"Alan! ALAN! Where the hell have you been?"

"Right where I said I'd be."

"NO YOU WEREN'T!"

"Umm.. yes I was.. I"

"NO, NO YOU WEREN'T, GODDAMNED ASSHOLE. I LOOKED EVERYWHERE FOR YOU. I LOOKED UP AND DOWN... "

"Beep. Beep." I started scanning my items.

"SQUAWK, SQUAWKITY SQUAWK!" Mark continued on.

It's taken me eighteen years, but I have finally learned not to react to Mark's crazy public tantrums. If he's yelling at somebody else, like a cashier, or an agent, I pretend that I don't know him. If he's yelling at me I can't pretend that I don't know him. No, I just close my mouth and go about my business as if he isn't there, because in sixty seconds it'll all be over. There is no way he can sustain one of his crazed outbursts for more than sixty seconds. He just doesn't have the stamina anymore.

Crash Course

When I was nineteen years old I got a hold of some methamphetamine. Now I'm not talking about that stuff that Walter White was cooking up in a motor home. This was pharmaceutical grade meth. Back in 1969 doctors were prescribing methamphetamines for weight loss, so it was sitting around many a suburban medicine cabinet. Which I am sure was the source of the pill that I swallowed. Back then I was working the midnight shift in a factory, so the idea of doing some speed to help me through the night appealed to me. The thing is that I took the pill two hours before my shift. I remember sitting on a friend's car parked in the driveway of his parents house, in Markham, Illinois. I also remember talking a lot, and being very happy as I went on and on about nothing. There were four of us there and we were all high on the meth. Here is the problem with this scene. At eleven thirty at night I left my friends and drove to work, still all hopped up on this pill. I then went out to the factory floor and started my shift. It was probably the best two hours I have ever spent operating an injection mold machine. However, around two hours and ten minutes into the shift, the pill started to wear off. To this day I cannot remember ever crashing as hard as I did that night, and I still had six hours to go. That right there is the reason that I never, ever allowed another hit of speed to enter my body. I hated the come down.

The reason I thought about this episode of my youth is Christmas. Christmas is like a hit of speed during the shortest and darkest days of winter. It begins with a few folks stringing lights outside the day after Thanksgiving, peaking a few weeks later when everybody who is going to, has lit their homes up like an airport landing strip. That is the time of year I enjoy walking the dog in the evening. All the lights, all the colors, it's great and it really lights up the dark streets. But what gets lit up, must get turned off, and the day after New Year's all of the lighting comes down. Suddenly the streets are dark again and I am walking Chandler in the dark. It's a real letdown, the big Christmas crash. So now everybody has removed their holiday lights, except for the house at the corner of 24th Street and 17th Avenue. Those guys leave their lights up forever. I mean, it is like March before they decide they've had enough. Honestly, I think they may be addicts.

Oh, and that factory job. That job that paid really good wages, that my dad helped me to get, I eventually got fired. No it wasn't the speed. I think it was more likely the  pot.

Off the Deep End

Phase one of my beautification of Casa de Alan is complete. The entire house has been painted and on New Year's Day I started on the swimming pool. What I needed to do was drain the pool, patch up the rough areas, and then paint it with a high quality swimming pool paint. Early Friday morning I dropped a sump pump into the deep end of the pool, ran a hose out to the street, and turned it on. For three days I pumped the water out of that swimming pool. For three days expensive water that I have to replace when I am done, ran down the driveway and into the sewer. Literally, I was flushing cash down the drain. Draining a swimming pool, like filling it, is painfully slow. I watched as the water level dropped about an inch per hour. That's a six foot deep swimming pool, which means a lot of pumping. Finally, yesterday, I got the water level down to the point where the pump would not work anymore, and removed the rest of the water with a mop and bucket. Now I could get to work. First thing, patching those rough areas with patching compound. That was kind of fun, like spreading peanut butter on a piece of bread. When I was done, I stepped back and admired my work. Good enough, so I went in the house and watched a little football while it dried out. That's when I heard all the commotion outside. That's when I noticed that the sky had turned very dark. Yes, that is when the skies opened up and a couple of inches of rain fell in buckets out of that darkened sky. I now have more water in the swimming pool than I had at sunrise on Sunday. Less than a half an inch of rain translated into two feet of water in the pool. Oh, and all that  patchwork I did, has to be redone.

I remember when I was shopping for a new home twenty three years ago. On my must have list was a swimming pool. I was young and thought that there was nothing better than being able to step out into my back yard and jump into my very own pool. I was right about that... for a couple of years. Then the shine wore off that glittering blue gem. Truly, I could dig a hole in the ground, take thousands of dollars and just bury it right there. I'd get just as much pleasure from that as I do from this goddamned, concrete blood sucker out there.

Alicia and Alexis 2015 Year in Review