It's an hour or two after Pest Management said he would arrive, it's 6 30 pm, but I'm just glad he came.
His blue eyes under his pest control hat are bright. "Sorry, I'm late, had some trouble at the house before you, a half hour took 2 hours," he says.
Bruce is quick to tell me, in the first few minutes of looking around my kitchen that "this wasn't my first line of work."
"What was?"
"I was in the corporate world, management."
I don't want to be rude, but I don't care what Bruce used to do, I only care what he can do for me now, and I don't think any less of him that's he's in a hat and uniform that say pest control.
Or maybe I do and it's unconscious. But really I just want him to get rid of the live creatures that have taken over my house.
Bruce looks over the holes I have closed up with steel wool, then checks for more, inside and outside the house.
He finds many.
"You look like you can take care of things yourself," he says.
"Looks can be deceiving," I say.
"OK, then we can close up all the holes for you, but I'll tell you, it will be expensive, I can point out the places they are getting in, and then you can get someone to do it for you. Don't tell the company but it will save you a lot of money."
"What about today?"
"How are you with, um. you know, getting rid of them permanently?"
"I had one lady from the city she wanted to save the mice at all costs."
"Oh no," I say, "I've had mice in my apartment, I've asked them to leave, they wouldn't, I had poison put around, sounds cruel, but I couldn't live with mice."
"Ok, what method do you want to use?"
"NO glue traps," I say.
"Can they just go somewhere else to die, I don't want to see that."
"Well, this is the country, they might and they might not."
"Just do what you have to do," I tell Bruce, "I'll deal with it."
And then Bruce says again that he used to do something else. "There's nothing wrong with what you're doing now," I say.
"Well, I do get to meet nice people like yourself."
Wait, should he say that?
And then he adds, "I like your choice of radio station."
I'm listening to a classical music station, one of the only stations that I can get on the radio.
Another comment that makes me uneasy.
It's happened before, a workman comes in , you're alone with them, you're a single woman alone, and then some odd remark comes out of their mouth. It doesn't happen every time, but often, too often.
I thank him for appreciating my taste in music.
Can we just go on from here, and get to the job.
I like to think I'm a peaceful person, but I'm at "war" with the mice, I don't want them here.
There's no peaceful coexistence. I just don't want to see traces that they are around.
I think of all the creatures in my house instead of outdoors where they belong as invaders.
I imagine the mice running around, sitting in my attic on tiny little tables, with tiny mouse maps and toothpick pointers, discussing their plans to fight back.
ok she's blocked off our usual points of entry, we'll have to go in through the dryer vent, she'll never look there.
She just can't take this house back, it's ours, squatters rights, she left it too long this time.
They would be right, I left it alone too long this time.
A flat leaver. I left my life, and the house along with it.
My house didn't sit here unchanging waiting for me. It kept going, spiders wove cobwebs, mice multiplied, carpenter ants dug themselves into the wood floors and started eating.
Wasps made hives under the eaves of the porch, and even a squirrel (or so Bruce thinks) has found his way into the attic)
The grass kept growing, the weeds took over the stone walkway, snow melted on the roof and seeped through to the ceiling, and lots of assorted and tiny bugs have made homes in the windowsills and corners.
Coming back is not so easy. There's a whole army of life in here, not eager to move on.
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