PROJECT OWL PROCUREMENT

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After being off for three days, I don’t want to go back to work. Frankly, I don’t want to go back to work after being off for one day, but that would be another story.

I should be looking forward to returning to work. At least there I get paid to clean up and wait on folks.

Fang, my long-suffering husband, was sick this weekend. He had a cold. He’s not sick often, so he doesn’t really understand the concept of “muddling through”.

“Yes, Fang”, I wanted to say, “People get the sniffles and continue to function.” But, you know, that would have been insensitive.

So, instead of keeping our Friday night date and doing some other fun things that we had planned for the weekend, we stayed home. He blew his nose a lot and went through a bag (or three) of lozenges. I cleaned.

His being sick turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I think I finally put the “mouse situation” to rest. (And, yes, a few mice were also put to rest.)

Earlier in the week we resorted to those “inhumane” traps. They worked. Finally. Nothing else was working. It had to be done.

It’s a good thing, too, because if they hadn’t worked I was toying with the idea of getting myself an owl. I considered a snake — at least they are legal to own here in New Jersey, but decided that allowing a snake to roam freely around my kitchen would prohibit me from roaming freely around my kitchen. So, yeah, no snake.

I don’t like birds. I know that owls are birds. I would argue that they are the princes (or princesses) of the bird world, though. Eagles and hawks being the Kings and/or Queens.

I cannot imagine the skullduggery that would be required to get my hands on an eagle. Hawks proliferate this area, but just try catching one. There is one that circles my house. Once in a while it dive-bombs me. Standing outside with some type of net might be worth a try. Even if I did manage to catch it, training a full-grown hawk might be problematic.

Getting an owlet would be easier. Plus, then I’d have an owlet. They’re pretty darn cute. And, how cool would having an owlet be? Fangette would be thrilled, absolutely thrilled, to come home for Thanksgiving to find an owl living in the hovel.

The resident feline might not share Fangette’s excitement, though. I don’t know how he would feel about sharing his domain with a bird of prey, but since he failed to rid my house of the disgusting, scurrying rodents that were becoming the bane of my existence, I had little sympathy for him or his feelings. He would just have to adjust.

As I was thinking about the ins and outs of PROJECT OWL PROCUREMENT, a few people — the trusted few with whom I shared my idea — did point out that the owl might eat the cat. I hadn’t thought of that. No matter. There must be species of owls that don’t get that big, right? Owl eating pet problem solved!

Just to be clear, Fang was not one of the “trusted few with whom I shared my idea”. He likes animals, though. He’d likely take to owl ownership. And training. He taught the cat to fetch. I have every confidence that he could teach an owlet to catch mice.

I thought that about having a cat, though, didn’t I? I was very mistaken. Who wants to bet that I’d be the only person in the world to own an untrainable vegetarian owl?

Luckily, the snap traps worked. And, because I spent the weekend at home, I used the time to drag the stove out. Guess what I found behind it? A hole in the wall. A mouse hole. I sealed it up. So far, I’ve not seen hide nor hair of anymore rodents in my kitchen.

Hopefully my hard work will pay off. Otherwise, I may have no other choice but to obtain an owl. I really hope it doesn’t come to that.