Little Victories

I had no idea when I went to see it how much

this movie would direct the forces in my life.

Longtime readers may recall that Fat Cat, having used up all nine lives, shuffled off her feline coil last Thanksgiving. So, as sure as God makes little green apples, a couple of weeks afterwards, the landlord decided to upgrade plumbing hereabouts.

Goofus #1 and Goofus #2 employed to do the job were earnest, if not very bright, plumbers, and they managed to get the digs' piping upgraded, and with only three tries, finally sweated the final fitting right, and stopped the leak they created.

Buuuuuut...they left gaping holes in the sheetrock where they dropped new lines to replace the old copper tubing. Way up in the attic space, but still...

Consequently, there lately was newly heard a rustling and bustling up thataways, where normally only old boxes sit, and the only residents are dust bunnies and ghost turds.

Until last month.

I know this, because old potato chip bags that fall behind the trash bin do not, as a rule, chew themselves to small ribbons.

Then there was a regular rustling behind piles of piles around the manor.

Rodents in the wire! Set off the claymores!

Knowing that I have, when there's a local heatwave, propped open the front door to capture a breeze now and again, I was afraid that, like one brief incident decades hence, I might have inadvertently invited Mssr. Rat in to set up residence.

That was bad enough.  Having no desire to share space and have to deal with Kung Flu and plague-carrying rabid sewer rats, I began removing possible hiding places from among the piles of grown-up toys, ammunition for same, books, and other research material in the various corners of the lair. But a couple of weeks later, as I whittled down the available hiding spaces, imagine my shocked surprise when, instead of some monstrous Norwegian Brown Sewer Rat, my late night visit to the loo revealed a couple of field mice, in flagrante delicto.
The brazen rodentious bastards.

And, in what quickly became apparent, they had obviously brought their relatives and relations.
Such that
1) containment measures that would suffice for Mssr. Rat would not work on an animal that can get through a dime-sized knothole, and
2) They had already escaped containment, and decamped to the four corners of my fiefdom.
3) Which, thanks to the gorram Kung Flu, is now awash in potential mouse food, much of it so new I haven't had time to decant it into mouseproof sealed metal cans and food-grade buckets yet. And which, if they get into it, will beget a never-ending sh*tstorm of well-fed mice.

F**k that very much, thanks.

They sure as hell aren't getting any of my chow, no effing way.
Having some wee experience with the little rodentious bastards, and the campaign awards to prove it, I hie myself to Orange Box, and grab a package of Mk. I Traps, Mouse, (4)@. And, Callooh! Callay! Sam's Club gifted me a few months back with a free tasty retort packet of honey-peanut butter.

I bait my trap line, and set the ambush.

I have thus been greeted by a steadily increasing bodycount this week, until this morning, on arising, the last rodentious p.o.s. was found dispatched.
O frabjous day! 
I have since patched the holes in the sheetrock, on my side and the neighbor's side of the wall, so they won't be getting in again. Other than animals I've brought home, the biggest problem I've had were ants and the occasional spider.

But seriously, them getting in just after the lifelong unemployed cat, who would have made sport of them, had permanently departed, and just at the beginning of a pandemic where stored food could be kind of a big thing? WTAF?!? What are the odds of that?
I was looking for the hidden camera, I swear.

"Nine godless communist thieving mice dispatched, all weapons functional,  local patrols report no enemy within the AO. All enemy buried at sea via indoor plumbing. Area all secured."

And a moral to the story:
The little things and minor details, no matter how implausible, can always make any disaster go from bad to worse, just when you least expect it.
Like I needed reminding that Murphy is a right bastard.