The Desert Mermaid

On Saturdays I work in the Space Place Dome Theater with Jan, a boomer who is so bubbly and batty, with such eccentric pronunciation, that I haven't ruled out that she might actually be in an evil coven such as the ones you're always seeing in Satanic granny media.* Jan was doing the star identification intro at the console, and I was sitting on the floor in the corner enjoying my tea.

JAN: ... Orion, Canis Major ...
SOMETHING IN THE SHADOWS UNDER THE CONSOLE: *wiggle*
ME: ?
JAN: ... Leo, rɛdʒʊlʊs ...
MOUSE: hi
ME: *internally* Well, well, well. It appears the maintenance guy's email about rodents in the building is out of date! They have reached the Dome!
MOUSE: eep! a human! *scamper*

And that's how I met our resident varmint!

[after the show]
ME: So, there's a mouse.
JAN: A MOUSE?!
ME: It was skittering around down here.
ME: *pointing flashlight* It went under the console.
JAN: A LIVE MOUSE?!
ME: I already texted our maintenance guy.
ME: Gonna go down and let the supervisors know, and grab some supplies
JAN: *SHRIEK*
ME: *running back up the stairs* WHAT? Are you okay?
JAN: *pointing dramatically* THERE IT IS!
MOUSE: you guys have the best audience, you know that? they sneak food in here all the time and drop it on the floor, probably for me! ♥️
ME: Gonna put on my rubber gloves
ME: In case I get astronomically lucky
MOUSE: well i can see i'm no longer welcome here, bye!
MOUSE: *disappears down one of our cable-conduit pipes like fuckin Mario*

So I told the supervisor, and the custodian,** because what the hell was I planning to do with the rubber gloves, and the supervisor got a trap and marched up to the console to set it up. Jan held her flashlight, and they both crouched way under the console desk to examine the mouse's warp pipe.

MOUSE: can i help you?
JAN: EEEEEK!

And then, in her haste to get away, Jan proceeded to whack her head on the underside of the console desk, and the supervisor scrambled back on all fours and ran screaming from the dome.

The rest of the day was a tense psychological thriller as Jan sat with her feet up in her office chair, fretting about The Mouse's whereabouts and her flowy pants and "open-toed shoes," which were some definition of "open-toed" that was beyond me, on account of being close-toed, and periodically checking under the console with her flashlight and shrieking when the mouse would poke its head out of its warp pipe.

ME: Don't put your head under the desk again, okay? I'm not sure if I could tell if you had a concussion
JAN: I'm gonna go home and change into mouse-proof clothes on my break.
ME: I doubt the mouse is gonna wind up in your shoes or pants, but I hate anxiety, and if changing will help alleviate yours, then go for it.

I didn't want to laugh, because phobic reactions like that are involuntary and unpleasant, and lord knows I have phobic reactions to dumb shit, too.*** But I also have this core-deep sense that every phobia is kind of absurd, so it did strike me kinda funny.

Anyway, Jan got through her shift unsqueaked, and took off for home, and I was there waiting for the next presenter to come in, vacuuming and grumbling about the absolute goddamn slobs our patrons are. Seriously, we don't allow popcorn in the Dome. Why is it everywhere? Do they trail it in like comets' tails? WHY DO WE SELL POPCORN.

NEXT-SHIFT COWORKER: Hey.
ME: Hey. So we're probably going to regret this conversation, but are you afraid of mice?


*I even caught her listening to Mötley Crüe, which I hear is Of The Devil!

JAN: With the music I listen to, you would never guess I'm a senior citizen, would you?
ME: I dunno, aren't most of the band members senior citizens by now?

**Custodian has taken it upon himself to help me practice my Spanish. He was very proud of me for my casual "Hay un ratón en el domo."

***You chew on ONE BALLOON with your tiny sharp toddler teeth and suddenly you've got a lifelong anxiety. Limbic systems are idiots.

What I Learned Since The Spring Equinox

- Komodo dragons have a hunting strategy so creepy I now check my closet for them every night.
- Brandon Sanderson is a damn fine fantasy author.
- Tales from the Crypt was on HBO, making it a lot more TV-MA than I ever expected it to be. It’s still incredibly cheesy, though.
- One way to get that stonewashed jeans look is to unleash the cellulose-dissolving fungus Trichoderma. Jeans: pre-molded for your convenience!
- Above gateways in castles it was common to have a watchtower with a hole looking down upon people entering—where one could drop rocks or boiling oil on undesirables. This was called a MURDER HOLE.
- Snails and slugs are DEMON SPAWN FROM HELL WHO WILL EAT ALL YOUR BEANLINGS. They are one of the few members of the animal kingdom I cannot love anyway, so this is no surprise.
- The USDA divides US climates into numbered garden hardiness zones, with lower numbers equalling harsher growing conditions. It does not work quite as well in the western US as in the east, though. However, Salt Lake City is roughly Zone 6.
- DeviantART twits ship Kel/Joren. OH GOD WHY.
- Dad does not like heights.
- Raccoons can have 3-6 kits in a litter. In your attic.
- The Four Corners region’s desert status is even more recent than I realized—at the tail end of the ice age, it was a lot more temperate and its woodlands probably even reached above your waist.
- Sometimes the things you think are your job actually get you into trouble with your boss.
- Total Recall is an awesome movie. WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME?*
- For that matter, so is Invasion of the Body Snatchers—both the 1956 and 1978 versions.
- The Great Basin is a subset of the Basin and Range region of the US. I was never really clear on the difference.
- The pygmy hog’s piglets fit in your palm and are the most adorable things short of baby golden moles.
- William Gibson’s early, non-awful treatment of Alien3 is available online. It is still not as awesome as the version in my head, because nothing could be, but at least it’s got adventures and Hicks and Bishop and Newt!
- On a similar note, James Cameron’s Avatar would have greatly benefitted from the hour of deleted and only-partially-animated scenes on the Extra Super Bonus DVD. I’m not saying that would’ve made it a great movie, but it would’ve been a better movie. You get more Norm! And more Max! How is that bad?
- Most people do not find a cut and size of jeans that work for them, then just keep buying that style over and over so they don’t have to bother trying them on. Weirdos.
- Sometimes you find yourself running a bed and breakfast purely by accident. Anybody else want to touch the llama?


*I showed it to my sister, whose response was “Oh, my god, why have I not been watching this every day since high school?”

… Okay, it is definitely a raccoon—and, as I guessed once I was sure it was not a moose, it is a mother raccoon. I know this because I just saw her exit the soffit* with a fat little baby raccoon swinging from her jaws.

I think she’s relocating them, so evidently our Yelling At The Raccoon strategy actually worked.** I’m feeling pretty smart myself for having suggested leaving the soffit accessible in case of relocation. However, I am not a raccoon expert; I am a dumb homeowner who watches lots of nature shows, so I will still be calling in wildlife people as soon as the clock strikes Reasonable to make sure she really is relocating her litter and not taking them on a field trip or something, and also to do whatever it is wildlife people do about the problem of raccoon poop in the attic and the skin-crawling parasites and microorganisms it carries. (I am having a Hannelore-style meltdown over these. Having survived malaria with no lasting damage does not, it seems, make me any less neurotic about diseases.)

First I’m going to get some sleep, though, because aside from my cartoonish war with varmints, I also have an interview for an amazing job promotion in a few hours. It’s going to be a fun day.


(A lot of y’all offered some raccoon-repelling advice to me. In turn, I will offer you a very useful site I found with some good basic information. I can see why it’s at the top of Google’s list.)


*This is a new word I have learned today!

**Either that, or she does not care for Dad’s classic rock surround sound playlist. And who can blame her? I'd probably head for the hills too if I thought Don Henley or Jackson Browne was in the vicinity.