Of mice and men

 

More and more, we find ourselves putting things down, and later not remembering where we put them.  That happened again a couple days ago.  Judy took out her hearing aid and went on about her business.  The next morning it was nowhere to be found.  She wasn’t sure exactly where she left it.  She remembered taking it out while she was doing something else, so she put it down in a spot she doesn’t usually put it.  That much she remembered.

 

We have a way to locate lost things.  We get out the CSI light.  (Really, it’s just a flashlight, but when we’re looking for lost articles we call it a CSI light.)  It helps a person focus to do a methodical search with a bright beam of light.  Well, the first problem we encountered was that we couldn’t find the CSI light.  What can a person do about that, when they can’t find the thing they use when they can’t find something?  The extended search for the CSI light was successful when we found it in the backyard where we had used it the day before, put it down, and forgot all about it.

 

Now, armed with the CSI light, we CSI’d this place to death and couldn’t find that hearing aid anywhere.  We looked in every logical place.  Then we looked in every other place.  It wasn’t even in the refrigerator.  We finally had to give up.

 

Next day we looked again.  Nothing.  It might be gone for good.

 

Today, Judy started moving furniture.  Again.  Not just a little like yesterday, but completely relocating furniture around the room, and there in the living room, underneath the couch, there it was.  For no reason.  That was surely not the place she put it down when she last took it out.

 

Closer inspection of the recovered artifact revealed tiny little bite marks on the flexible bits.  (I should also mention that coincidentally, in this re-searching, Judy picked up off the kitchen counter an avocado she bought yesterday, and there was a hole on the underside of this brand new avocado with tiny little bite marks along the edges of the hole.)  And now it all comes clear.  We have a mouse.  A mouse that likes avocadoes.  A mouse that likes avocadoes and tiny trinkets.  A mouse that stole the trinket off the kitchen counter and took it under the couch to test all the little parts of it for flavor before moving on to avocadoes.

 

So this story has a happier ending than the John Steinbeck novel does.  Nobody had to shoot anyone in the head.  A happier outcome for us anyway.  Not so much for the mouse; we put out traps for him.  I guess he’s playing the part of Lennie.