I killed a mouse with a broom tonight. Was on the phone wishing happy birthday to my grandmother in PEI, who turns 95 this week, when Suzy wailed from up stairs. Gram was raised in rural PEI on a farm in a tiny community called Pleasant Valley. Now she plays Internet Scrabble. She’s sharp as a tack, but I was alarmed to learn from her just tonight that she’d spent 3 days in hospital earlier this month “because my heart was fluttering and the nitro didn’t help.” Since Dad died, I get most of my Hickox news from Mark in New England.
So I had to let Gram go. “Gram, I have to go kill a mouse in my bedroom.”
“Oh, dear. I thought I heard Suzy scream. Is she all right?”
“Yes, but she’s probably on the bed.” (she was, with the boys).
So I went up stairs, chased the mouse into the hall (out of sight of my wee men) and beat the living daylights out of it. I broke the broom in the process. Then I picked the mouse up like one would a sidewalk doggie do, in a Bob the Builder towel that we’d tossed in the Sally Ann bag. Then I and wiped up the blood. One mouse gone. Collateral damage: Broom.
We have electric lights now. My sons’ great grandmother is on-line. But we still have mice in our homes. Strangely comforting, that.
… I hear something in the walls …
