Girly

Part I

I thought I had come to terms with the undeniable fact that mice, rodents, live among us in the city.  I could accept their mostly invisible presence in my kitchen.  Even when they made their presence known—once I caught one scurrying across the counter and down into the stove; another time I came home to find a sink full of dishes and two tiny ones hiding among them—I got over it . . . by scooping them up in the colander and dumping them out the window.

Though I knew they were there, around, somewhere, as long as their existence was no more than conjuncture, if I never gave too much thought to the transient wisps with tails ghosting through the walls, it was fine.

The Mus musculus, commonly known as the house mouse, lives in close association with humans, and its survival depends on that association. Bodies range in length from 65 to 95 mm, not including the tail, which is from 60 to 105 mm long.  Weight is between 12 and 30 g.  Not a very intimidating size, is it?  Compared to their strictly rural cousins, house mice tend to have longer tails and darker fur.

Apparently, they are also equipped with bigger gonads.

That’s just what I need.  Gutsy mice.  Mice with stones.  Mice with reckless courage.  Mice that breach the lines of neutral territory and come down the hall to the bathroom.  Mice that enter without knocking first.

I was putting up my hair, about to get in the shower, and only happened to have my gaze directed at the floor, when I saw it shoot under the door, round a quick corner and go under the sink cabinet.  It was so small.  It seemed to move without touching the floor.  I would have mistaken it for a dense gray dust bunny if its body hadn’t had such marked forward thrust.  Clearly, it had places to go, and my towel, which I’d dropped to the floor, blocked its path between the doorway and the heating vent.

My yell began as a groan, a sound of dissenting horror.  I snatched up my towel and clutched it to my chest, only to wonder if I shouldn’t burn it—how close did those little feet come to it?  But by then, I’d thrown the bathroom door open and my roommate had come running down the hall.  We both stood in the doorway while I professed my absolute certainty that I’d seen a mouse and not a hairball and she tried to persuade me that whatever I’d seen was already long gone, and I reasoned that to get long gone, it must have had feet.

When I finally reached into the shower to turn off the water, which I’d already had running, we both heard the scratching of paws from under the sink.  She cracked up and I whined one long, wordless note of misery.

I detest being such a girl about it.  It’s not like I’ve never encountered a mouse before.  We had them in my house when I was a kid.  One summer at camp, I named the mice we saw darting into dark corners of the cabin.  I called them Stuart, Stuart, Stuart, and Little, and I hoped my campers would accept that woodland creatures roam the woods, or at least be more comfortable with their harmless little cabin mates.  Maybe the mice got too comfortable, though.  I was reading on the couch one night when one of the Stuarts crept toward me across the top of the back cushions, trying to get close enough to read over my shoulder.

A curious mouse in a cabin in the woods in the middle of the night is one thing, but Speedy Gonzalez had the pluck to interrupt the dinner hour. He entered an inhabited room under a closed door.  He saw me naked.

And he’ll pay for the privilege.  With his life.

Part II—Humming “All Things Bright and Beautiful” all the while

One night last summer, I went out for a girls-only night in a silky black skirt and a pair of four-inch heels. I don’t know what made me reach for those shoes, but I put them on as though it was entirely ordinary. Just as though it was entirely ordinary for me to go out in a whole flock of chicks.

I was all good for the first two hours, which we spent on stools at one place and then perched around a table at another bar. I didn’t last long on the dance floor, though. Even standing still, I felt like individual bones in my feet were breaking in quick succession. If I sat down alone to take a break, I became the target of smarmy guys out on boys’ nights with their wingmen.

There comes a point when discomfort makes me cranky and when I reached that point, I bailed on the girls. And that’s how I found myself waiting for the train at Second Avenue with two hobos passed out on the bench and a handful of 20- and 30-somethings calling it a night.

Nearly breathless from the pain that shrieked from my shins to my toes, I limped to the bottom of the platform stairs and hoisted myself on to the silver railing. It wasn’t a comfortable perch, but if I draped across it at a certain angle and sat up straight, I could keep my balance and give my feet a break.

And if I hooked the heels over the lower crossbar, it bore the dead weight of my feet and eased the throbbing agony.

Once I got situated, I flipped my cell phone open. But I must have overflipped because it flew out of my hand. It was a reflex to reach out and try to catch it. My upper body forgot that my lower body was essentially incapacitated. I pitched forward like a top heavy ventriloquist dummy and hit the filthy cement floor knees first, my shoes still latched on to the railing. Like I’d been strung up by my ankles.

To untangle myself, I had to twist to one side, scraping the back of my thigh on the ground just to get my feet to join my butt on the floor. I felt about as graceful as a beached whale. In stilletos. And a miniskirt.

A few people shot sympathetic glances in my direction (the sound of 130ish pounds of girl and evening bag dropping to the floor from midair had drawn attention). I also caught a few rolled eyes that said, “Hail a paddy wagon. Next stop: Drunk Tank!” I resisted the urge to announce, “I’m not a drunk! I’m just a klutz!” I just smiled. And climbed back up on the railing. That time, I managed to catch myself before I hit the floor, and then I sat right down on the steps.

The bruise on my left knee lasted for two weeks. It was shaped like Australia.

I swore off those shoes. Last night, I left them in front of my building in a cardboard box, along with a few shrunken knit tops and a pair of old PJ pants. By morning, they were gone for good.