<loner> a person who is or prefers to be alone, esp. one who avoids the company of others <lone> being alone; without company or accompaniment; solitary; unaccompanied
When I was a little girl I was terrified of the thought of bugs in my bedroom, especially in my bed. No one likes bugs in their bed but it was more than not liking – it was the fear of the possibility. I’d find myself playing with my dolls or trucks and the thought would come to me – what if there is a spider climbing up into my bed right now? I’d dread the impending bedtime and especially the never being sure that there wasn’t a spider laying in wait to snuggle up to me.
I still remember one or two offenses - the stinkbug that ran right across my face during a nap or the nasty furry spider that crawled up over the fold of my beddybye blankets to meet my gaze, spidey eye to little girl eye. The worst was the anxiety, fear and general heebiejeebies post bug-in-bed encounter. Crawling back into bed and falling asleep was absolutely out of the question. First, I’d undo the bed and check for bug or spidey companions then I’d remake the bed and lay there very carefully and anxious knowing that there were more in my room. They could be hanging out in the curtains, behind my bookcase, under my rug – waiting for the lights to go off so they could traverse the thready landscape of my bedroom carpet and crawl up into bed the minute I closed my eyes.
After one such an encounter and the tummy tickling anxiety that followed I frantically pulled apart my bedding in tears as I told my mother, with conviction, that I was never going to sleep again. With a weariness that was one part tired and one part sympathy she told me to “stop being so dramatic, that there was nothing to be afraid of because spiders don’t come in herds, in fact I should be glad because I found the one spider in the room and it was the only one around”. You see, as it turns out, bugs and spiders aren’t very friendly creatures.
The fact that spiders are not pack animals brought me great relief because it made complete sense to me. You never see a bunch of spiders crawling along a wall, in the tub or in your bed – there’s always just one. Charlotte’s Web reinforces this fact, Charlotte didn’t have any spider friends and all her babies were blown away after they were born so not only do spiders not have friends but they don’t even hang out with their own kids. Cool, it was great news, it sounded true and to this day, on occasion, I will still remind myself of this fact.
Which brings me to today – today I found a creature in the basement. I was doing the laundry and I reached over to pick up a fallen handkerchief when I stopped just short of picking up a rather large mouse instead. I screamed as the connection from brain to voice box made the quick leap to fear even as I was still to comprehend what it was I was seeing – grey body, little ears, black nose, rapid moving belly.
I jumped away from the mouse which in itself was funny because if he hadn’t scurried off as I rummaged around in the laundry basket just inches from him, a scream wasn’t going to do the trick. Next came the reluctant voice of my husband, the only logical voice that comes in response to a scream from an old, dark, damp and cluttered basement – a voice that doesn’t want to know what the scream about at all.
“Micky, come down here,” I yelled.
“No.”
“Mickeeyyy.”
“God, what is it, just tell me.”
“It’s a mouse, it’s sides are moving really fast, come down here.”
I was fascinated by it. As repulsed as I was, and boy was I, the thing made my stomach hurt and a sour taste found its way to the back of my mouth, I couldn’t help staring at it and finding sympathy for it. It was kinda cute, it’s tiny little perfectly shaped ears or it’s cute little paws as it licked and wiped at it’s black bitty nose. The truth is, for one moment, across the room from the damn thing it was almost sorta cute until I heard my husband holler “you always said you’d deal with rats, we had a deal.”
It was at the word rat that I saw the long tail that snaked out behind the little creature that seemed to have suddenly grown a wee bit bigger in the time I’d looked up at my husband face peering around the basement door. It was no mouse, it was a rat and any trace of cute was replaced by awareness that the basement was damp and sticky and a little hard to breath in.
I’ll spare you the details of how we got the bugger ( him AND his tail) up from the basement and threw him over the fence into the yard of the abandoned house next door and how the little guy crawled around for a bit but it wasn’t long until he lay quiet and the flies . I’ll jump to what happened an hour or so later when my husband came to find me and tell me about his theory and the point of this here entry.
In the time that had elapsed I’d called my mother, my best friend and posted about the incident on facebook. I’d gone back to the basement (with the dogs en tow) and mapped out a plan to get the place cleaned up, inspected for entry points and tricked out with the latest in rat trapping technology. I was ready to go to war, I was repulsed and set on erradication, when enter my husband.
“So, I was thinking , I’m pretty sure that was the only mouse in the basement and let me tell you why.”
It was all I could do not to smile, in fact I’m sure the corners of my mouth must have lifted slightly. It was one of those fleeting moments where my husband takes a break from the strong, confident and capable man I see in most everything he does, instead he was my husband, a sweet grown boy, an elusive creature who I catch only glimpses of here and there. Asleep on the couch, playing with the dogs, laughing at the occasional crude joke with his guy friends, and when his favorite soccer or football team wins a particularly important match.
He proceeded to explain how and why it was the only mouse and that we didn’t need to worry about it. His story sounded a lot like my mother’s ‘they don’t come in packs story’ but it didn’t ring true because . I looked him in the eye and what I found was his need to believe and I remembered my own need to believe and at the end of the day he was right, we had made a deal, I’d would take care of the rats.
