Mouse-Off 2006

NOTE: My wife made me remove most of this story because she doesn't want people to know that mice sometimes get in our trailer. Sorry honey it won't happen again.

Recently at work, I competed in a "who has the most disgusting mouse story" contest. I admit that the winner's mouse story is more disgusting than any single mouse story of mine. But I can offer depth of coverage:

One day while cleaning the living room, [REDACTED] Not content to confine themselves to the [REDACTED] I did not start a fire inside the trailer [REDACTED].
We decided that the best way to avoid problems in the future was to not clean the house anymore.

I have to keep [REDACTED] One of the mice [REDACTED] I was so affected by the [REDACTED] shed a little sensitive tear as [REDACTED] the heel of my work boot.
Also, [REDACTED]

When I was farming, voles (i.e. field mice) were a livelihood-threatening problem in the blueberry fields. Since the farm was organic, I did my weeding with a high-powered weed whacker, which regularly scared up the root-destroying little beggars. On occasion I'd nick one with the line and then invite one of the dogs to finish it off, but mostly I just chased after and either stomped or kicked them to death. (It is surprisingly challenging - and entertaining - to chase after and successfully punt a fleeing rodent while wearing a weed whacker.) [DOESN'T TALK ABOUT THE HOUSE BUT REFLECTS POORLY ON CHARACTER - OK TO USE]

This is not even mentioning stuff like [REDACTED] too bad I don't have a feud going with the neighbors.

Oh, and the "winner"? Here is her story:

I found a dead mouse on my bedroom floor. I was casually looking at it when I noticed that it appeared to be defecating despite the fact that it was dead as the proverbial dormouse, whatever the hell that is. Upon closer inspection, my sympathy turned to absolute HORROR when I realized that it wasn't poop, it was a very large beetle-looking parasite that was crawling out of this poor dead mouse, apparently abandoning ship after killing the damn thing. The beetle-looking thing then proceeded to crawl around the floor for a little while before locating and climbing back inside the mouse again to complete its dastardly mission, whatever that was.
I get the shudders just thinking about it, or about what might have happened had I not witnessed this and removed the infested carcass from the house. What might have emerged next? A family of about 1,000 beetle-like parasites looking for a warm, fuzzy home, like in my cat? What if my cat had actually eaten the mouse? Are there more of these in the house? So many questions.

I love games like this where there is really no winner, only carnage.

Also, a pre-emptive message [REDACTED] my trailer (SINGLE WIDES IN THE HIZZOUSE!) [REDACTED], along with other impolite behavior. They're also nature's original renewable resource - no matter how many you slaughter, you're not even denting the population.
To sum up: [REDACTED], go suck it.

¶ Thursday, September 28, 2006 2 comments

 
I have a few Questinos

As anyone who has to write frequently (emails included) for their job can attest, when there is typing there are typos. It's well known that people tend to make the same typos repeatedly, like a faulty linguistic fingerprint. Most of these are just a pain in the ass, but occasionally they're entertaining.

I type pretty quickly, so I tend to make transposition errors on a regular basis, especially at the end of words. My favorite is when I try to type "questions" but end up transposing the 'o' and 'n' so it comes out "questinos." This is, of course, the preferred spelling in Spanish-speaking countries.

I'm thinking about creating an autocorrect entry that translates the rest of the sentence into Spanglish instead of just correcting the spelling. So if I accidentally write "Please let me know if you have any questinos," it will instead display "?Cuanto cuesta sus questinos?" I think this would clear up a lot of confusion.

¶ Friday, September 22, 2006 2 comments