three high mice

okay, so we may be out of the woods with mercury out of retrograde (hopefully the boss isn't reading this now, because he would grumble, "enough with the mercury in retrograde bullshit, already!!"), but my technological life, nonetheless, remains in shambles. this data missing, that data hiding, this computer running photoshop slowly but not the internet and sometimes no mouse, that borrowed computer having internet but no photoshop etc.

that is a lot of words just to say that all you get right now are more words. so sit back and get ready for storytime! this one is a mystery involving rodents, drugs and well, just that. a normal night in brooklyn? perhaps.

we were sleeping peacefully with the knowledge that we live in a brooklyn apartment unusually free of mice. this is because of prussia the cat. she may be a fourteen year old scardey fluffball who gags when she catches sight of an ant or a fly (no joke--though it is a hilarious sight), but despite her lack of ferocity, her primal cat smell usually does the trick, and not since the week before i dragged her in from the shelter in 1999, when i found the dehydrated and flattened mouse under the stove, has a trace of rodentia been witnessed in the three brooklyn apartments i have called home.

until this strange night.

now, history reveals that i am no light sleeper. i routinely sleep through the drunken polish teenagers brawling then hugging just outside my window, armies of clanking mondo garbage trucks and pounding 80's techno on the other side of my bedroom wall. as a teenager i often slept through my own nocturnal wanderings, once waking up downstairs in front of the washing machine, curled up in a dog bed, jackets pulled over me for warmth, only because my hello kitty alarm clock started beeping. convenient of me to bring it along.

but this night, something very unusual, and very quiet brought me fitfully out of my sleep. it was a strange rustling. that kind of rustling that you've never really heard, yet instinctively absolutely know to be derived from vermin. and then, silence. and back to my heavy sleep i went. in the morning i remembered the incident but dismissed it. we've never even seen evidence of mice even in the kitchen. why in the world would they be in my bedroom?

next night, repeat. but louder. weirder. in fact, way too loud to be mice scurrying as discreetly as they are supposed to scurry. it sounded like a mouse disco was going on behind my desk. by this time, jade was sitting up in bed alongside me, both of us straining our eyes in the never-quite-darkness of the city night. prussia approached the desk chair, on edge, ancient urges calling her to almost action. and there they went--not quick flashes of maybe-mice along the floorboards, but jumping, dancing, weaving mice, playing tightrope on the top edge of my narrow computer monitor, diving down from the framed photographs to my desk.

"it's like they're drunk or high!" jade exclaimed.
and sure enough, a morning investigation revealed a huge pile of catnip that had haphazardly fallen behind the desk, spread here and there, no doubt on the feet of delighted mice.

i cleaned up the drugs, and they never came back.