27 Apr 2010

In which Hestia's feral nature is exposed.....

I really should have been flying about the house like a white tornado over the past few days, knocking it into some reasonable shape for my OH's return from sea. The trick with this sort of cleaning is to make it look very tidy, but just untidy enough that it looks convincingly as though we've lived like that for the six weeks he isn't here.

Instead I opted to spend Sunday at my girlfriend's house as we had both (misguidedly) inflicted the punishment of 'No Telly, No Computers' on our only-child children and were well-suffering the 'play with me mum' consequences.  We decided to pool resources and spend the telly-free day together - eating home made waffles with bacon, strawberries, maple, syrup, greek yoghurt and butter.  All on the one plate. Divine.


Anyway, hubby was coming home yesterday.  But I had no time to tidy up because I was off to the hairdressers to get my roots done.  The stairs were still to be hoovered and the kitchen had developed an odd smell that I needed to investigate......maybe I would have time after the hairdressers.

I sprinted home a few hours later (it was a good inch and a half that needed dyed) and was relieved to discover the house echoingly empty.  I hoovered the stairs in about 5 minutes flat.  Every time I realise that it takes so little time to do, I wonder why I only bother to do it once every 6 weeks.

Anyway, I had just dragged the Dyson into the kitchen to hoover there and the slamming of a taxi door confirmed......he has returned.

Cut to today.  My feral nature has been exposed in its disgraceful entirety.

Willie realised that the trug of charity shop toys that he plonked his case down next to yesterday was, in fact the SAME trug of toys that he had left six weeks before-hand.  There was plenty of evidence in the way of dust bunnies behind it to prove that in the six week period, it hadn't even been kicked sideways to hoover behind. The dust bunnies had pet dust bunnies of their own.  Possibly even mortgages and families.

Worse,  FAR WORSE, is that he immediately identified the source of the unusual whiff in the kitchen.  There was a dead mouse in the boiler cupboard trap (humane killer - honestly).  It had obviously been there for AGES, if you catch my drift.

I hung my head in shame and loped up to my room to sit and reflect on my house-wifely failures.  Willie has said nothing, but it's one of those nothings that speaks volumes......

(mouse image: cannot find original source to credit ;-(  )

8 comments:

  1. LMAO of course the corpse removal had to wait for him to come home - removal of dead things is STRICTLY a male job !

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  2. I don't mind disposing of them, really. They are very cute things - but they do chew through your wiring and your sash cords in the windows.

    We have a Mass Grave for the mice - with a stone on top that says 'here lies the moose from our hoose'.....made in the days when we thought we might just have the ONE mouse. HA!

    Ali x

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  3. The trouble with humane traps is that often they aren't. We caught our mouse, which came back after the first time I let it go, while we were out and by the time we got back and found it, the thing was covered in its own excrement and fairly traumatised. I let it go (further away) but have no idea if it survived the experience. It would probably have been kinder to kill it.

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  4. Our humane trap actually kills them. The poor thing didn't starve to death in the cupboard trap, it was electrocuted. The circuit completes as the mouse puts one front paw on one plate and the other paw on the second plate. Electric shock just zaps straight across chest.

    I don't feel good about it, believe me, but I saw what happened to a wee mouse in a standard mouse-trap and shelled out about £30 for this zappy one.

    They all get buried with respect. I hate killing something that isn't doing me any harm, but mice and rats can't be left to roam unchecked or you end up infested ;-(

    Ali x

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  5. Ali - I empathize! I managed to vacuum yesterday for the first time in . . . . a while . . . . and we were reminded that the carpet is actually a pale cream color, and not light brown.

    Sigh. Must find domestic assistance soon before the place collapses into an entropic pile of chaos.

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  6. I'm too humane to kill dust bunnies ;D

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  7. I fear you & I may have much in common. And I have no excuse as only have me, myself & I to look after...LLGxx

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  8. LLG - Oh, if only we had the glamorous things in common!!

    I love how YOU can go into the attic and emerge with fantastic vintage accessories.

    If *I* go into our attic, I will only re-appear empty-handed but with spiders in my hair.

    Ali xxx

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