Thursday, May 19, 2022 My Thumb Hurts

Yes, it’s true – my thumb hurts. Of course, this is not something you care about, but I’m going to tell you about it anyway. Here’s how it went down…

It was a dark and stormy night. Just kidding. But we do need to go back a few weeks. Our cat was having an extended stay at our son’s house and one day I was down the basement talking to a friend on the phone when I saw it – a mouse. “Eek!” I said, or something like that.

This was no ordinary mouse. It didn’t even have the wherewithal to run away when I got closer to it. It appeared to be entering its sunset years and I half expected to see it using a tiny mouse cane. It crept to the edge of the room and stopped moving, as if it realized the gig was up and there was no use trying to escape. A sense of dejection and resignation emanated from the wee creature.

Nevertheless, I put my live-in Pest Control Expert on the case and he quickly set up a couple mouse traps. The mouse, probably surprised that death wasn’t as imminent as it thought, left the scene and did not give in to the enticement of peanut butter on the trap.

Two weeks went by and the mouse and traps were forgotten. Then the cat came back. (Those of you who went to camps as children are now hopelessly stuck singing the words “the very next day…” I’m sorry – it couldn’t be helped.)

It occurred to me that the cat might find those traps worth investigating, so I moved them off the floor and put them on the counter by the washing machine. At the time, I was patting myself on the back for being so smart as to remember the traps at all. I saved the cat’s life! And in the back of my mind, a teeny, tiny voice was saying something like “That might not be the best place for those traps.” I ignored it.

Today I grabbed a tape dispenser on that counter and didn’t see the trap by it until – THWACK!

My thumb hurts…and now you know the whole story.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, because the fact that my thumb hurts is really irrelevant to the entire world.