In Memory of Spencer

I don't write about my personal life, often. Mostly because I don't have much of one. My dogs make up a good 90% of my day to day living, the rest is comprised of a combination of my general insanity, my family (and by extension my friends) and my work. I took myself out of the dating pool a few years ago and rarely look back. But with recent news about the (very likely drug related) death of Cory Monteith, it brought up some old wounds that I feel should be talked about.

On this blog in particular I come across as this care free guy, who laughs a lot and just charges ahead into life with out a single regret. And for the most part that's accurate. And while I like my life and don't feel like anything about it should be changed, there are more depths to me. There are pieces of my history that are not full of laughter.

When I first read about Cory Monteith's death, my first thought was “poor Lea Michelle.” And I had that thought because I knew in that moment exactly how she felt. Exactly. I don't talk about Spencer, I rarely mention his name any more and the few people who know the full story are always quick to keep other people from prying too hard. That's because there is a hole in my soul, left by the loss of someone I loved, who loved me, but was taken by drugs.

Spencer and I met in college. He was a Freshmen as I was a Junior. We met because I was sitting in my dorm room one night watching TV with Pepper crashing on my bed (we lived on the same floor.) I had my door open, as was the custom of that particular dorm, and I happened to notice a very tall, very slender man with a six inch mohawk and a Matrix style coat stride pass. I cocked my head to the side and rushed out of my seat.

I bounded into the hallway, and shouted at the departing figure. “Hey! I think we should know one another.”

He was walking with another punk-looking fellow who was several inches shorter, and heavier built then he was. But the mohawked man turned and looked back at me. It was the first time I ever saw Spencer's smile.

He came back down the hall to me holding out his hand. We shook.

“I'm Spencer.” He said.

“Dean.” I replied.

We must have looked strange standing there as we were. He was 6'4” built skinny with long limbs and equally long fingers. His grip was firm though, and his smile genuine and caused wrinkles to form in the corner of saphire blue eyes. His hair was an ash blonde that was threatening to get darker at the base. I was short (very short) and built with broad shoulders and a sturdy frame thanks to an abudance of Irish blood. I had dyed my red hair black. While he was pale enough to ensure he spent most of time indoors, I had a deep tan from a summer spent trying to get myself killed in the mountains and on the back of a horse.

“So you think we should get to know eachother?” He asked, raising a brow as he looked down at me.

“Yeah.” I replied. “It's the Mohawk. I like it.”

He grinned at me. And it was the start of a friendship that would come to define us both, but especially me, in ways that years later I still can not acurately describe.

I have memories of Spencer that are filled with so much laughter that it hurts my sides just to remember them. I have memories of Spencer filled with so much passion that it overwhelms me. And memories that are so full of pain it ruins me to still have them. He is, to this day, one of the few people in the world who have ever made me question my own intelligence, he was that smart. We were friends, we were sometimes lovers, we were two people who shared something that made sure no matter what else was going on in our lives, we at least knew we belonged to one another.

Our relationship waxed and waned, but neither of us seemed to mind that we would come together and temporarily drift apart. We had no verbal agreement to one another beyond the understanding that if I needed him, he'd be there, and vice versa. Most of our mutual friends believed that one day we would eventually get married, settle down, live a strange life of artists and geniuses. But all their bets and knowing looks when we sat together on the couch watching the same movies and tv shows over and over again would never come to see validation.

In late September of 2009 I made a phone call that would change everything. I called Spencer to confirm a date we had set up for the following evening and to clarify if he or I was going to drive. But the person who answered his cell wasn't Spencer. Instead it was his father, Dennis, a man I had only met briefly but had listened to long hours of rants from Spencer about his behavior. But it wasn't the arrogant drunk on the phone with me, he sounded tired and resigned. And as I listened to him explain what had happened I stopped moving.

I had been out running errands with my mum, helping her pick up a couch she had just bought, with my truck. And I stood in the middle of the store with a look on my face that made even the salesman take notice. I had tears in my eyes as Dennis explained that two days ago Spencer had been admitted to the ICU at St. Al's.

Spencer had been at a party with some of his friends, the friends he never let me meet, that he kept me away from. He had taken something and had lost conciousness. No one was certain how long he had been out, no one had noticed that he had stopped breathing. When someone did notice they had paniced and called Dennis first, instead of 911. When they paramedics did arrive, his heart wasn't beating. They managed to get it restarted, but it stopped twice more on the ride to the hospital. They had him stabilized but he was comatose.

I could barely get out a sound to acknowledge I had heard him. I hung up with Dennis after getting the information for his hospital room and turned to look at my mother. I don't cry often, I never have been that kind of guy, even as a little, little kid. I just wasn't prone to outward displays of vulnerability. But I had tears coming down my face when I looked my mother in the eye and said. “It's Spencer...”

He was in a coma for 10 days, during which he coded twice more. His body survived, but the man I had known and loved did not. What is left of Spencer now is a shell, medicated and brain damaged to the point he can't even hold a conversation. I remember coming to see him after he had woken up, his frame thrashing as full body muscle spasms racked him. I remember wanting to see him and know there was hope, to feel like his parents (who insisted he keep being revived) had no done the unthinkable to him and robbed him of who he was.

I walked into his hospital room and couldn't move when I saw him. He trashed around, his body contorting as it fought withdrawls and painful spasms. And when I came closer and I looked at him the man who looked back at me wasn't my friend. It wasn't the man who had dyed his hair pink because I told him it would be unexpected. It wasn't the man who had let a young kid poke his mohawk and warned him never to put his fingers in light sockets because that was the result. It wasn't the man who had quoted Firefly word-for-word while we watched it for the 100^th time. It wasn't the man who had looked me in the eye and told me he didn't deserve me, that he loved me and had from the moment we had met.

The man who stared back at me was a shell, was angry and hurt, and confused. And he looked at his mother with a look in his eyes that said only betrayal. And when I said his name he looked at me , he looked me right in the eye and I knew. He was slipping, whatever of him was still in there would eventually be destroyed by pain, that his parents had done the worst to him and robbed him of his mind while keeping his life. The nurse who was in charge of his primary care saw it, she noticed the way he looked at me and pulled me aside before I left. She questioned me about what might have happened, and I told her I didn't know.

He had been trying to get clean. He had been working at getting off drugs, quitting drinking and smoking. He had a thousand vices (most of which were the reason we never settle down, he refused to let me hitch my wagon to his sinking ship, as he put it.) But he had recently been trying to fight back against them, and had credited a desire to finally do right by me with his reasoning. But addiction is a tricky disease, and his parents had certainly set a wonderful example (his father a raging alcoholic, his mother spent most of his childhood checked out on valium and pain medication.)

“Do you think this could have been intentional?” The nursed asked me.

I must have looked at her harshly because she flinched a little when I stated: “No.”

She took a breath and asked again. “Are you sure? Because according to his records he has attempted it before...”

I knew about the previous attempts, during his turbulant teen years. I knew about his cutting. I knew about the cocaine. The downers. The uppers. The Alcohol. The cigerattes. We had no secrets, only promises.

“He wouldn't. He made a promise.” I told her.

“I know it can be hard, but ...” She tried.

“No. You don't understand. He promised me. He swore to me he wouldn't, that he wouldn't do that to me. He promised that if he felt like that he would call. He swore it. He never broke a promise to me, ever. He wouldn't have started with this one. He had problems, but he never broke a promise.”

The eventual ruling was officially listed as an accidental overdose. And I stood at his bed side through physical therapy, speech therapy, and every other kind of therapy you can imagine. All the while feeling like a traitor because I knew what he would have wanted. I knew that this was not how he would have wanted to live. When he was released he attempted to kill himself several times before they drugged him to the point he wouldn't. And I watched as he left me forever. I watched as he was numbed from the inside out and all that remains is a shell walking around, mumbling... and one who could look at me and show me nothing.

When you lose someone like that, it creates a hole inside of you. Spencer's body might still be alive, but the man I knew has been dead for several years now. And there is no one to blame, but him. I have a hole where my soul mate was ripped away from me. Because he made a choice, and it killed him. There is no peace with it, like can come after losing a loved one to a prolonged illness or old age. There is no drunk driver to be mad at. There is no higher power to blame for making a body that was faulty and riddled with a time bombing lying in wait. There is no one to direct your grief and anger at the loss of this person at, except the person themselves.

You go through the motions of moving on, you put camoflage over the hole and you find a way to live again. But there is always a hole there, inside of you there is always a piece missing. Any one you love after will be competing with a ghost, and you can't help it, no matter how hard you try. Their memory is alive inside of you, always. And you love them more then you did before because all you have is what you remember, and you remember all those good things like they are gilded and carved of precious stone. And most of the time you're okay, you're alive and well and you laugh and you have friends and you even find other people you could love. But then something happens and reveals the hole through the camoflage, and you remember how it used to feel to be whole. And you feel that hole there inside of you and you long to feel more complete.

So when I read about Cory Monteith passing, my first thought was about poor Lea Michelle, because I knew what road lay ahead of her. Because I know what she is feeling. I know the hole that was just made inside of her, will haunt her forever. And I know that any time she reads about someone else dying under similar circumstances she will be reminded of that hole. No matter how many years go by, it will always be there, an empty space inside that leaves an indescribable aching.

I don't know if I can do my memories of Spencer justice. I don't know that my memories of him aren't clouded and tainted by the rose color of missing someone. I don't know if I'll ever be able to explain what we shared to any one who didn't witness it. I know that someday I will have to try, maybe tell the story as if it were happening to someone else. And maybe this entry is the start of that.

The Smallville Slasher

I often go down a local book store called Hastings  to write during the week. If you don't have a Hastings in your area, I am sorry. You're missing out. They are a wonderful little place that sells books, musics and movies. They also have little cafes in them, that serves your basic coffee stand sort of fair at a reasonable price. They provide free WiFi and you can sit at a chair for hours on end with headphones in and no one will bother you. My local Hastings happens to be familiar with Sullivan (the service dog) and I, and are always happy to see us and considerate of giving us plenty of space while I work.

But one of my favorite things about Hastings is the people watching. Like any other coffee store a variety of people filter through the cafe. And more. Because the rest of the store attracts all kinds you get the opportunity to watch some interesting people. And like most writers I find people watching entertaining, inspirational and highly distracting. And the best case of people watching is that of the Smallville Slasher.

During the summer I would escape the heat at Hastings to work on various writing projects. And continually I kept seeing the same kid. He was the sort of interesting looking that isn't unattractive but is just unusual. He had pale skin with obvious freckles and curly bushy hair that wasn't quite red, but wasn't committed to being brown either. He usually wore sweat pants, or baggy shorts. A pair of grungy sneakers and socks that were the same color but weren't quite exactly the same. And almost always a tee shirt relating to some comic book super hero, in particular he seemed fond of Superman. The first time I saw him he had a Netbook with him and would type furiously into it for short bursts then stop and appear to re-read what he had just written. He also had a stack of Smallville DVDs for rent sitting next to him.

My conclusion was obvious: clearly he was writing Smallville Fanfiction. And because it was me making the assumptions, I figured it was probably Slash fanfiction. I was hooked.

Now most writers of this generation have cut their teeth one way or another on fanfiction. And most of us, especially those of us who write gay romance, can admit that we've probably read (or written) a few slash pieces featuring our favorite male leads from books, movies or television. Hell, I've written some (and if you ask nicely I might share it with you.)

I quickly became sort of obsessed with this man sitting near me at the cafe. He was younger than me, and while I thought of him as a kid, he was clearly in his early 20's. He was so fixated on what he was doing that he never seemed to notice the interest I took in him. I began writing on my (personal) Facebook page about him, telling any one who would listen about what he was doing, and my theories about the stories he was writing.

My fixation on him only grew when I kept running into him. I had no idea if he ever noticed the way I would write about what he was doing, but he didn't seem to mind. He would furiously type away, always in short bursts. Than he would stop, sip from his drink or glance through a magazine about Smallville. I began thinking up covert ways to get his picture to share with other people, who were beginning to become intrigued by him as I was. 

The 1st photo I ever got of him. The cellphone
acrobatics I had to do to get this would make
a Russian Ballerina jealous.

So last summer and early fall it was a game for me to see if I could spot him. And as an added bonus it continued to encourage me to go to the cafe to work, though admittedly I got very little work done. I was too busy updating every one of my Facebook friends about what he was doing, and trying to figure out how to sneak a picture of him.

My game became even more exciting when I started spotting him on the street. I reverted to my childhood self, always looking out for slug bugs, only now I was hyper-vigilant trying to spot the Smallville Slasher. I would try my best to get a picture of him from my cellphone every time I saw him, while also trying not to run some unsuspecting Prius off the road.

No Priuses (Priusi? Priusee?) were harmed in
the taking of this photo.

I realized today that the cold weather has driven me indoors, and my trips to the cafe are not nearly so frequent or exciting since I have not spotted the Smallville Slasher anywhere. I like to think he is back in college, and that his commitment to walking around town stored for warmer weather. And hopefully come the warmth of spring and summer I will see him again, walking down the street with purpose and a grocery bag in one hand, or a backpack over his shoulder. Or I will see him at the cafe working on his next great work of Smallville Slash Fanfiction. One can only hope.

I think it's in the nature of writers to gravitate towards writing the stories of the intriguing people around them. I see strange people on the street and I wonder about their life story. I find myself deciding a course of events that lead them to be where they are at that moment. And like the Smallville Slasher, I tend to give them names. Usually something that relates to what I see them doing; for example: the tall skinny guy who is always holding a mattress store sign on the corner of a major intersection that I see routinely as I drive by has been dubbed Tall Scrawny Sign Dude. I feel fairly certain I am not the only person on the planet who does this. And while I have been challenged about my psuedo-stalking of the Smallville Slasher, I suggest all is fair. And nothing is stopping him from doing the same to me. I wonder what he calls me?

This is here just to demonstrate that weird
people are often on the side of the road
in Boise. Nemo here was promoting
the Idaho Aquarium.
"What, and give up show business?"

To Dog It May Concern X-posting

I have for the last couple of years written about my dogs on another blog. It's called "To Dog It May Concern" and it began as me writing letters to my dogs (and never naming names) about their strange, rude, comical and outrageous behavior. It has since evolved to be a sort of platform in which I talk about my dogs, share stories about them and even talk about dog culture as a whole from time to time.

The other day I happened to write a piece for the blog inspired by my real life events dealing with an ancient 15 year old dog, Nutsy. I've had Nutsy since he was 8 months old when I adopted him from the shelter. I am now 30 years old. You can do the math on how big a part of my life this dog has been. Literally, half of my life has been spent with him. But now that he's old I find myself in a whole new position as his caretaker. And it occurred to me one morning at 4am as I stood outside in the freezing cold and snow just how far people go for their beloved pets as they age. In my life as a dog trainer I've seen it dozens of times, the owner who makes absurd monetary, time and life sacrifices to care for their old friend. Sometimes to the point of unhealthy extremes, but always with the best of intentions and the most heartfelt desire to make old age easier on both human and dog.

And that sometimes those sacrifices and those sleep deprived nights can feel awfully lonely. Because you think in the back of your mind; "There's no way any sane person would do this..." But the truth is; we all do it. We've all done it. And you and I will probably do it again. So with out further interruption a link to the post, so you too can feel not so alone in the universe when you're standing in the bitter cold at 4am making sure your old dog goes potty.

To Dog It May Concern: When I'm a thousand years old I hope I get to Eat a lot of Red Jello

I know a lot of you who follow my twitter account  (@Dean_Ocean) have already read this. But in case you don't have twitter or facebook (which seems like a really weird thing...) here is the link again. Feel free to spread it around to your friends, family and loved ones struggling with an older pet.

Prozac Nuts, Depressed Squirrels and Mexican Smuggling

The following story is proof positive I have always been weird. This takes place during the years I wasn't drinking.

When I was a Junior in college I was one of the few people around with a reliable car. Due to the death of my paternal grandmother when I was ten, I had an inheritance that allowed me to purchase a decent car and pay for the first couple of years of school. This meant I had a vehicle that wasn't likely to kill you on the long drive between home (Boise) and School (University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho – pronounced Mos-co, why the fuck there is a W involved is beyond me. Russian conspiracy.)

As such the last day of Thanksgiving break of my Junior year I got a call from a buddy of mine. Robbie was from the town of Lewiston which was a decent 45 minutes south of Moscow, if you drove the exact speed limit the entire way. It was a fairly good sized town right at the junction of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. It's a neat little town at the heart of Lewis and Clark territory blemished by a paper mill that makes the whole area sort of smell like rotting plant matter. But you get over that.

Robbie called saying his ride back to school had bailed and he was wondering if I would come and get him. I was a college student just back in the dorms from a week long vacation and on top of that I was at this point I had just changed my major to English (which is College for Read a Lot of Books and Tell People Why You're Right and They are Wrong.) This means I had copious amounts of time on my hands. So I agreed.

I put on the radio as loud as I could with out giving myself a head ache or a concussion from the bass and drove to his house in Lewiston. The irony is that while Robbie and I met by sheer accident, his father had at one point in my life when I lived with my father in the Moscow area while he attended law school, been my pediatrician. Doctor Robbie's Dad did not remember me until I reminded him I was the kid who dislocated his nurse's knee cap when she tried to give me a vaccine. He asked if I still had problems with needles, I said only when people try to poke me with them.

This is a true statement even today.

Doctor Robbie's Dad loaded us down with food. This as I had already figured out is a staple of any parent with a kid in college. You send them back to school with clean laundry and everything in the house they haven't already eaten while visiting on break. This is because there are two things college kids are bad at: doing their own laundry (mostly because our laundry room in the dorms was haunted by a poltergeist that stole women's underwear and even though I never wore women's underwear I felt my superhero boxers were probably too tempting to resist.) (It was either a poltergeist or the pervy kid from the 3^rd floor.) And the other thing college kids are really bad at is grocery shopping.

If you ever want a college kid to show up for something, tell him there is free food involved. Say free beer and he will bring his friends. To this day Pepper and I will pretty much go anywhere if you tell us free food is involved. Yet again adding to the list of reasons why I am not really an adult.

The ride North to Moscow was uneventful. Full of loud rock music and horrible bouts of geeky laughter. Though Robbie and I hadn't known each other long we had become fast friends. It was the sort of friendship that happens when two like minded people meet and say to one another “you are awesome and so am I.” So while we were busy laughing at bad jokes and puns about the Matrix (because it was cool to do back than, promise) I didn't realize I had accidentally driven up behind The Most Annoying Truck Driver in History.

He was driving a hack job old Ford with a flat bed loaded down with rusted oil drums and wood siding. It was the sort of truck that came straight out of my childhood home town with a whopping population of 375 people, most of whom were probably related and did not have all of their teeth. It was the epitome of Idaho Redneckary (that's a word now.) And the worst part: he could not make up his mind what speed he wanted to go.

When I first came up behind him he was driving close to the speed limit. Which allowed me to drive close to the speed limit. But as time passed he slowed down. Not just a little. A lot. He slowed down so much at one point he was going 45 miles per hour in a 60 mile per hour zone. If that wasn't bad enough, a few miles later (because this was a two line highway and I was unable to pass him legally and it was in fact driving me nuts and I was white knuckling it on the steering wheel inventing ways that velicoraptors would sweep by and just run his god damned truck off the road) he would speed up to around 63 miles per hour. This game repeated over the next 15 miles before the lanes opened up and I had a chance to pass him.

Problem. The passing lane was ¼ of a mile long. And this was when Mr. I Can't Figure Out How the Gas Pedal Works had decided now was a good time to drive 60 miles per hour. So while I was trying to speed around him after going a whole 47 miles per hour, he was speeding up to 60. I was not going to lose out on my chance to pass him, so I cheated.

See, folks, I didn't just have a reliable car: I had a Monte Carlo. One that had been modified by the previous owner for street racing. So when I punched the gas pedal, it was like being in the Fast and the Furious only I didn't have smoking hot Michelle Rodriguez or Vin Diesel beside me. But you get the idea.

I was so done with the ass in the truck that I failed to notice the cop waiting at the side of the road. I breezed past Mr. I'm Inconsiderate of Everyone Else Trying to Drive a Consistent Speed on the Road and the cop, going 75 miles per hour. Whoops.

Insult to injury the Inconsistent Motorist passed me as I pulled over with flashing red and blue lights in my rear view mirror. A bigger man would make a comment about karma and poetic justice. I am not that man.

The real point of this story is not about the fact that giving a college kid with a penchant for adrenaline fueled acts of stupidity a sports car was probably a bad idea, or that speeding will always get you in trouble one way or another. The point of this story is to tell you how I ended up deciding that the reason squirrels on city streets dive under the tires of passing vehicles is because they are suicidal. And it's all because of Mexico.

The cop exits his vehicle and walks up behind my car, pausing to take in my custom licensee plates (which are a reference to a drug song from the 60's even though I don't do drugs, I just happen to like the music of Jefferson Airplane. So much.) He walks with the kind of swagger only a man with a small doughnut belly, a mustache that went out of style before I was born, and a state patrol uniform can muster. He pulls his mirrored aviators off (because he clearly thought CHiPs was the height of television genius) and leaned into my open window asking for my license, proof of insurance and registration.

This is not the first time I've been pulled over in my car (imagine that.) So I have them at the ready and I manage to fish out my license from where it rests in my wallet behind the second most important source of identification: my student ID. I hand him over what he asked for and glance at Robbie. He blessedly waits till the cop is back at his vehicle to make a face at me and I start laughing. Mostly because I'm tired, I'm a stupid kid and I'm fueled by more caffeine than is responsible for any one person to consume (seriously they should do studies on how college kids manage to survive with out their hearts exploding.)

I manage to sober up and put on a some what straight face as the cop comes back. He hands me my information but keeps my license. He stares at us each in turn. His sunglasses are back on his face and I resist pointing out it's actually not that sunny of a day.

“What's in that baggy there?” He asks suspiciously and points to a small plastic sandwich baggy in my center console.

I blink and stare at it, noticing it for the first time. Robbie immediately loses his amused face and we both stare at the baggy together. In all honesty, I had no idea where it came from. There were always people coming and going from my car (this was when gas was cheap so no one thought it weird to have one dude driving all over kingdom come) with various foods, drinks and god knows what else. It was not that unusual to find pieces of trash left over. I pick up the baggy. It's empty.

“Apparently nothing.” I say holding it up.

“Give it to me.” He orders.

I comply. “I think it was a cookie at one point in time. I don't know someone probably left it in here.”

He takes the sandwich bag from my hand and proceeds to open it and sniff the contents. I watch him with my head cocked to one side. “If you're hungry there are some muffins in the trunk.”

Robbie punches me in the arm. “Dude!” He hisses.

I realize in hind sight that this line of thought was one of those moments where I would have been better off keeping my mouth shut (there have been, through out the course of my existence, more than a few of these.) But it's too late, Officer Over Zealous wants to see what's in the trunk. But I can't open the trunk from the interior of my car because it's just not that fancy. So I am forced to get out of the vehicle and walk around behind it, use the key and pop the trunk.

He peers into the impressively sized trunk for a two door car (I could fit a couple of bodies in there – I know because I have done it. They weren't dead or anything. That does not make it sound any better, actually) and asks: “What else is in here?”

“Uhh Cheetos I think. There's some Gatorade. Half of my friend's father's kitchen pantry basically.” In all honestly I was trying to behave myself. But I have innate ability to say all the wrong things from time to time. This was one of those times.

The officer straightens up and makes me face him. “Stand up straight.” He demands.

I do. Rigid spine and everything. I am not very tall. So this left me with a perfect view of his chest. I could see his name plate and badge. For the life of me I can not remember his name because the thing that stuck out the most to me was the little pin under his name that said “25 Years of Service.”

Now, if one has been a cop for 25 years and is even remotely good at their job, I would expect at this point in their career they would have graduated from busting college kids in a speed trap. I would assume with that kind of job experience you would be a detective, or perhaps working the posh gated neighborhoods with the Starbucks on the corner that knows your order because you spend a lingering amount of time there every afternoon. After all, you've put in 25 years on the job, you've earned the right to take it easy in the twilight of your career and enjoy the simple things, like overly sweet coffee beverages smothered in whipped cream. But the next line of questioning would tell me exactly why Officer 25 Years of Service was still busting college kids in a speed trap.

In a serious voice that came straight from the one and only episode of COPS I ever watched he asked: “Where are you headed?”

Readers, keep in mind that I was wearing a University of Idaho sweatshirt. There was a University of Idaho sticker in my back window. On the front driver's side windshield was a University of Idaho student parking permit. When I had handed him my license, in order to do so I had to first remove my University of Idaho student ID. In my trunk, in plain view was a University of Idaho course catalog. It was also the last day of Thanksgiving Break, on the only highway in the entire state of Idaho that leads directly to Moscow. All signs pointed in one direction: North, to the University of Idaho.

But as the cop asked me this question, every fiber in my being at once whispered in a voice only the Devil or the God of Mischief could mimic: “Mexico.”

“What did you say, son?!” He snapped.

“Moscow.” I corrected myself.

“Why are you going there?” He asked with out a hint of irony.

Once again my entire body is seized with the glorious desire to declare the most absurd thing I can think of; and that thing is because I am smuggling squirrels to Mexico. I, thankfully, have learned my lesson from the first two times I just said what I was thinking and keep my mouth shut. This, as it turns out, is also a mistake.

“Hey. Answer me!” He barks.

“I'm going back to school.” Which should have been obvious given that there is really only one reason any one goes to Moscow, Idaho. Hint: it's not for the sheep.

He stares at me suspiciously. He has no reason to be suspicious of me really. Other than being snarky, I am actually at this point in my life living a pretty benign existence. In fact I wasn't even drinking alcohol (even at parties and even though I was attending one of the top ten party schools in the country.) I had tried pot once a year before and it had ended with me hiding in the shower waiting for the Lizard People to come, which effectively put me off the stuff for life (or at least for another year before I tried it again, only this time it ended with me putting guillotine booby traps on the windows of our second story living quarters – I haven't touched it since.) This was pre my days where I name my stronghold Zombie Slayer Central, train dogs to bite people on command and spend my nights obsessing over the Zombie Apocalypse. This was pre the days when I referred to my living quarters as a “stronghold.” So all in all, I am not exactly the Drug Czar of the college campus this guy clearly thought I was.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?”

“No, not really.” This was the truth, because at this point in time I was laboring under the delusion that it wasn't speeding if you just used it to pass someone quickly and get back to driving like a legal citizen.

“You were speeding.”

“I was just passing that guy in the old Ford. He was driving me nuts with the slowing down and the speeding up and the slowing down again. So I just sped up to get around him so I could use cruise control.” Because I had learned after my first speeding ticket that cruise control kept me from being that asshole who drives 80 in a 65.

“You can't do that.” He tells me.

I wasn't exactly the best physics student on the planet, I admit that. Frankly if it didn't involve explosions or dropping GI Joes from the roof I wasn't really that interested. But I did pay enough attention to understand the basic concept that two objects moving at relatively the same speed are not going to be able to sort out a workable single file driving arrangement in the short ¼ mile window afforded them for passing.

“That makes no sense. How else are you supposed to pass someone quickly enough to avoid getting smashed into by oncoming traffic? I mean I had a really small window of opportunity here, so I was always under the impression you just get around the other car and then resume normal speeds once safely out in front so no one dies in a head on collision or because your sports car got run off the road by a guy with a truck from the 70's---” Somewhere inside my brain finally said shut the fuck up, Dean. So I did, silencing myself abruptly and just standing in front of the cop with my lips pressed together like there was glue involved.

“I am going to search your trunk.” He announces. “Stay here.”

Now, just wait one minute. First and foremost he has no probable cause to search my trunk. I am fresh off my Criminal Justice major after realizing working with guys like Officer 25 Years of Service But I'm Still a Traffic Cop were the kind of people I want to punch in the face. But I knew perfectly well he had zero cause to actually search my trunk. And the biggest part of me wanted to reach over and slam my hood down and tell him “Nope! The Squirrel resistance can not be stopped!”

In my head I had a really cool French accent.

I did not do this however. Because while I could have forced him to waste precious time and resources getting a search warrant that would ultimately lead to nothing and get him in trouble for harassing college kids who are harmless, it occurred to me that this is Northern Idaho. I did not want to be the tragic warning of police brutality that gets spread around in hushed whispers on campus and told as ghost stories to incoming, naive freshman. Also, I did not have bail money. So I kept my mouth shut and waved him towards the trunk with the biggest My Parents Were Theater Geeks flourish I could muster.

While the officer searched my trunk I caught sight of Robbie sitting in the passenger side of my car. He looked pale, well more pale than usual because Robbie was a computer science major and that is the major for vampires and guys who remain virgins till they are almost 30. (Robbie was just a vampire, he'd lost his virginity he assured me.) His eyes were wide and his mouth open and he sat backwards in the seat staring at me with a look that said “for the love of god, don't do anything stupid.”

I did not blame him. I am notorious for not being able to stop the snark once it gets started and it was probably apparent to every one present that my Oppositional Personality was raging about inside my head like a bull in a particularly delicate china shop. But I was holding it together, the least he could do was not assume I was going to fail. I grinned at him and gave him a thumbs up. I had this totally under control.

As predicted (by the simple fact there was nothing more interesting in my trunk than a pair of six inch hooker heels used the year before for participation in the Rocky Horror Picture Show) the highway cop found nothing of note in my trunk. Though he did make a point of investigating everything he put his hands on, and even opened Robbie's duffel bag full of freshly cleaned underwear. This appeared to freak him out in that weird way only homophobes can be freaked out by the presence of another man's clean underwear and made me grin ear to ear. I bit my tongue to keep from suggesting Robbie spent his break working as a Rent boy on 5^th avenue. I doubted the cop had the kind of sense of humor one needed to find that joke hilarious (as a side note when I told Robbie what I was thinking later he did the can-can to demonstrate some of his moves. That's why we were friends.)

After breaking open a half eaten bag of Cheetos and spilling them all over the trunk of my car and putting everything that had been very diligently ordered in the chaotic way only I understand into sheer disarray, the cop stood up and closed the trunk. Apparently satisfied I was not, in fact, the college kid Drug Czar of the University of Idaho campus. He wrote me a ticket and warned me if he ever pulled me over again things would be much worse and got into his vehicle and peeled off the side of the road.

Since he was retreating and I was tired of keeping my mouth shut I shouted to the cloud of dirt and dust he spit up while he restored his masculinity by flipping a bitch and heading back towards Lewiston by shouting: “Till all the Squirrels are in Mexico! VIVA LA REVOLUTION!”

It was cathartic.

I got back into the car and stuffed the ticket into the glove box, muttering about what kind of asshole gives a kid a speeding ticket for passing another car.

Robbie was waiting for me with a look that was as much relief as it was confusion. “La Revolution?”

“Yeah. The squirrels in Mexico understand.”

He just stares at me.

“Well that idiot asked me where I was going.” I began.

“The sweatshirt wasn't a clue?” Robbie asked.

“No, apparently neither was all the U of I stuff lurking about. So at first I said Mexico. But real quiet so he apparently didn't hear me and that's why I wasn't arrested.”

“Right, because naturally someone driving North is clearly making a break for the Mexican boarder.”

“That was why I said it, because I felt it matched the absurdity of the question. But then he asked WHY I was going to Moscow. And I mean, come on why does any one go to Moscow?!”

“For the sheep, obviously.”

“Duh.” I say with out missing a beat. “But it got me thinking; Why would someone be driving North on Highway 95 but actually be heading to Mexico? So I decided it was because I was smuggling squirrels out of the country. Not just any squirrels, depressed squirrels. And I had to go North first to throw off the authorities in my smuggling. But the squirrels were depressed because they were living in cities and they keep committing suicide which is why they jump under the tires of your car while you're driving causing you to feel like a real asshole for weeks because you flattened a squirrel. But the squirrels don't have Prozac, so they don't know of any better way to deal with their depression then by committing suicide. But really they are depressed because everyone keeps cutting down their trees.”

“And Mexico is full of trees.” Robbie chimes in.

“Exactly. So now, in my head, I am this great Han Solo revolutionary helping depressed squirrels escape the tyranny of tree-less cities in the trunk of my car.”

“Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah, Robbie?”

“I'm really glad we're friends.”

“Me too. But do me a favor? Next time you need a ride back to school, remind me to clean out my car first.”

“Sure thing.” He agrees as I turn the engine back on in my car. “Maybe we should lace all the nuts in the cities with Prozac? So when the squirrels eat them they won't be depressed. We can make it a nation wide campaign: Prozac nuts for squirrels.”

I pulled out into traffic. “Prozac Nuts sounds like the name of a band. Oh my god we should start a band!”

We never did start a band. But wouldn't it have been a great VH1: Behind the Music origins story if we had?

I Get Banned from the Kitchen Regularly

Reason I am banned from the kitchen currently: I accidentally set fire to the stove. Again.

First thing you need to know about me is that I can survive for days in the wilderness, alone. With out accompaniment. The second thing you need to know about me is that four days alone in my own house and I am starving.

I am starving mostly because Pepper is out of town, and I am currently banned from the stove. Again. Normally when Pepper goes out of town she sets up a routine with several of our mutual friends, to ensure they stop by periodically, or call to ensure I am still alive. And she would make sure someone brought over food for me, or at least there was enough food in the microwavable category I will be okay.

Pepper left town rather suddenly this go round because of her grandmother's funeral back east (for those not paying attention we live in Idaho, that would be west.) As such she did not make arrangments to ensure there was enough food, someone to bring left overs or otherwise ways to be certain I was going to actually eat food and not wander around the house like a ghost complaining about hunger.

“But, Pine...why don't you just cook for yourself?” You ask.

That's simple. I am banned from the stove. Again. This happens several times a year. I do something that necessitates the use of a fire extinguisher. Or the disconnection of the smoke alarm and Pepper declares me unfit for society and bans me from the stove. This ban will last a few months, then she will slip and forget and I will start using the stove again. This doesn't last long however because sooner or later I set something on fire. Again.

So while Pepper is out of town I've been surviving on cheese sandwhiches and SoBe. Whining about being hungry to the dogs who can't figure out why I don't just eat dog food like they do. It's delicious, they swear.

This most recent stove banishment happened a few weeks ago. I decided I wanted macaroni and cheese. (Because I am still a college kid deep down inside.) (Okay not that deep down.) I put the water on the stove to boil. And because I had nothing better to do, I started washing dog dishes. Pepper and I split the house chores, and she does the human dishes the bulk of the time. I am entirely responsible for washing any dishes used by any animals in the house. We have seven dogs. Three cats and a Hawkeye. This generates a significant amount of pet dishes.

I am standing at the sink, singing along to the radio and washing dishes. I glance up and peer out the kitchen window to the world outside. It was dark out and through the pane I could see a flame dancing. I thought to myself “oh how nice, the neighbors have a fire going.”

Problem: we do not have neighbors.

Actually we do. But it's a cemetery, so if the neighbors have a fire it's probably the zombie apocalypse and the dead are rising.

So following my “oh how nice” thought came the quick realization “wait...we don't have neighbors...”

I turned around quickly to see that the stove in fact on the fire. The delightful flame I had seen was coming up from under the burner where my water supposed to be boiling for noodles. Suddenly it wasn't so delightful. Because there was a fire. Inside my house.

“Ahh!” I shouted. “FIRE! Ahh! There's a fire! There's fire! The stove! FIRE!” I stuttered over my own words.

I grabbed a towel form the counter and pulled the pot from the burner. I began tamping out the towel on the burner. It was around this time Pepper appeared. She entered the kitchen calmly, with both eyebrows raised.

“What did you do now?” She asked in a tone that suggested she had asked the question before. And she has. She asks this same question multiple times a week.

“It is not my fault!” I protest immediately. “There was fire! I put it out though!” Like some how the fact that I put out the flame I was some how responsible for was going to absolve me of the crime of setting the fire in the first place.

Pepper looked at me, then at the stove. And back to me. “That's it. You're banned from the stove.”

“Again?!”

“Again!” She waved her hand at me and turned to head down the hall to her bedroom.

“For how long?!” I called after her. The length of the banishment varies depending on the crime.

“Awhile!” She shouted and closed her door.

I stared blankly at the stove for a minute. And then at my cooling pot of water. “But I'm hungry...” I muttered.

Pepper opened her door and stuck her head out. “I will feed you in a minute! Let me finish what I'm doing.”

I grinned, and turned back to the dishes.

And that is how I was banished from the stove. Again. The moral of the story is that I can not be trusted to survive in a domestic setting with out adult supervision. And that being 30 years old, does not in anyway make me an adult.

Last Week I Behaved Liked a 12 Year Old Girl & All the Cats Were Fired

It started out innocently enough. Pepper (the Roommate) decided she was going to clean out her closet. She was packing for an unfortunate trip back east to bury her grandmother (Rest in Peace, Gram). And decided to deal with the emotions of grief and despair by being productive. Good on her.

Pepper is perpetually disorganized. As opposed to me who exists in a state of semi-chaos but my personal belongings are hyper organized. Everything has a place, just not necessarily where you might expect. Pepper on the other hand tends to shove everything in a corner and deal with it later. As a result of this policy her closet had become a catch all. The floor was covered in stacks upon stacks of paperbacks and DVDs. She was always complaining about not having enough room, and I , the gay roommate, could not figure out how she was running out of closet space. Not only is her closet bigger than mine, she has a fraction of the wardrobe.

Well the fact it was stuffed with dog stuff, books, movies and a dozen other odds and ends explained it. While she had very little clothing (for a girl), she had a ton of other stuff in the closet.

Our house is small. Painfully so sometimes. And since the living room was converted to the Kennel a few years ago, personal belongings are almost entirely in our individual bedrooms and bathrooms. I had long ago decided being over crowded by my beloved books and movies as unacceptable. So I weeded through my books and donated several boxes worth of books I knew I was never going to read again, and that weren't valuable enough to warrant keeping (I have a collection of first editions and antique books that are valuable.) I boxed up a bunch of other books and put them into storage off site. Deciding only to keep the books I had on my “to read” list, and those I knew I might access sin the future (reference books on the paranormal for example.) (I am an encyclopedia of weird, but even I have limits.)

My DVDs were another problem. Because I happen to watch a lot of movies. And periodically go back and re-watch movies and tv shows that I am fond of, or feel in the mood for. Netflix has sort of dominated my life recently, but I wasn't ready to part with my DVDs. The problem was I had well over 300 DVDs. Not including the box sets and television shows on DVD. So, the solution was obviously. I reserved a single shelf on a book case in my room, and put all my television shows there. I took the rest of my DVDs and pulled them out of their boxes. This allowed me to put the actual disks into sleeves, which were there alphabetized in a storage container. This took my DVD collection from being a large bookcase and then some, down to a small three foot tall by one foot wide container. Awesome.

Pepper had not yet realized this solution. So in the midst of pulling things from her closet, I hear a sudden terrified shriek. I don't mean a scream, I mean a full on girly as hell shriek. Pepper is not a terribly girly woman, she is pretty much a confirmed tom boy, and refuses to give it up. To hear her shriek like a little girl was both startling, and some what disconcerting.

I immediately came to her door. “What the hell?”

“A MOUSE!” She squealed at me, dancing on her feet as she couldn't shake her heebeejeebees. “There's a mouse in my closet! AHH!”

I laugh at her reaction. “It's just a mouse. Widget (one of the aforementioned currently fired cats) caught one the other day. She was very proud of herself.”

“IT'S IN MY CLOSET!” She wails at me. “GET IT OUT!”

I'm not sure when it happened but some where along the line of cohabitation with Pepper I became the “Guy Who Gets Things Done.” Mostly this seems to involve taking out the trash, repairing broken cabinets and occasionally a fence. This is not entirely with out justification, I was raised on a farm and I am quite familiar with reconstruction work and with the right tools can pretty much build almost anything. I do not, however, know how this translates into being responsible for removing unwanted rodents from closets.

Widget, who is now fired.

I entered Pepper's room stating “This sounds like an excellent job for the cats. Go get Widget.”

I felt a cat was an appropriate solution. Field mice are rather quick, and tiny. Widget had already proved earlier in the week she was a productive mouser. And it would be the Circle-of-Life-Lion-King-Mufasa-Scar-Betrays-Everyone-Nature-Taking-Its-Course sort of thing (and yes, I did just spoil the Lion King for you, Sorry.) (Not really.)

Pepper rushes out of the room leaving me to stare at the still cluttered closet with no idea if there really was a mouse, or if Pepper was hallucinating. I never put it past any one to imagine things like mice, and spiders. I do not imagine spiders. If I say there was a spider, there was a damn spider. No matter what the evidence says.

I began to slowly pull things out of the closet, trying to free up some floor space so that Widget has some room to work. I lift up a piece of rumpled clothing that had been laying at the bottom of the space for god knows how long, and low and behold there was a mouse.

Except my reaction wasn't “oh wow there really IS a mouse.”

 Look at those squinty Roid-Rage eyes!

My reaction went more like this: “AHHH A MOUSE JESUS CHRIST!”

And I may, or may not, have shot backwards several feet.

Now, as stated before, I grew up on a farm. Mice were not uncommon. We had them in the barns most of the time, and had two rather predatory barn cats who were very good mousers. In fact the most evidence we ever saw of the mice were their dead bodies stuffed between bales of hay (presumably to be saved for a later snack), and the occasional droppings. Once in a while there would be evidence of a mouse in the house, at which point we would bring the cats inside over night. They would spend the night indoors, and in the morning were put back outside. And there was no more evidence of a mouse. I was never really certain how they did it, but they always did. We usually only had one maybe two mice a year, and generally only in the colder months when they would decide even the barns weren't warm enough, or that the threat of Cat was too severe to continue living in the neighborhood.

You never really saw live mice. The few times I remember stumbling upon live mice, they were being hunted/actively chased by the cats so they weren't long for this world anyway.

I also had pet rats and pet mice growing up. In fact I had a particularly cool pet mouse named Walter through my first two years of college. (He was trained to do tricks for macaroni and cheese.) I am not afraid of rodents, per say. But there is something disturbing about seeing a small dark colored field mouse darting around your house. In the back of my mind my thought is always “You stay away from my cereal you bastard!”

Hey, I love lucky charms. I am assuming this is a universal species wide invariant. Have you tried them? They are delicious.

Rodrigo the gay field mouse with a drug problem
will eat your Lucky Charms, people.

Back to the mouse in the closet.

Pepper returns with Widget, who looks less than pleased. A life time of human's picking her up and snuggling her against her will has made her some what leery of what we plan to do with her. Pepper looks at me, triumphant with cat and knowing that I had actually seen the mouse (and not reacted that much more calmly then she had.)

“See? It's in there!” She thrusts the cat at me.

Like some how I am supposed to be better at putting the cat on the ground near the mouse in the closet than she is. This is another one of those things that happens when you're the “Man of the House” (however tenuous that is, because were this a spider I would be calling in the National Guard at this point.)

I pet Widget and tell her there's a mouse in the closet, not that she has any idea what it means. I set her on the closet floor where the mouse had been spotted last (and since vanished in a tiny furry blur.) I expect her to react the same way as my childhood barn cats would have, catching the scent of the mouse Callie and Cujo (yes I had a cat named Cujo) would have been all about catching it. Widget, not so much. In fact she basically looks up at both of us and gives us the finger. She leaps out of the closet and runs off.

Pepper and I look at one another. “Well....” I say. “We still have Jack? And at least two dogs that we know will eat mice...”

Cpt. Jack Harkness.
Cat / James Bond of the Future
(may, or may not, be the Face of Boe)

Cpt. Jack Harkness, another cat, had lived for several months feral in the area before eventually deciding he lived here. We were both fairly certain he spent his walk about days hunting for field mice behind the house here at Zombie Slayer Central (the name for our kennel/location.) We both, foolishly it turns out, assumed Jack would fill in the void that Widget had left in our Cats-are-useful-because-they-kill-mice plan.

Pepper left the room again, this time calling for Jack. I returned to gingerly pulling things from the closet. Pepper entered the room with Jack following her, presumably because he thought she had something delicious for him to eat.

“You call him.” She says when Jack stops at the doorway with a suspicious look on his expressive face.

“Jack Jack! Come 'ere.” I say in my sweetest here-kitty-kitty-voice.

Here's the problem with Jack: Jack is a bit of a fucker.

By that I mean, Jack has a tendency to know exactly what you want, and do the opposite. Just because. He's a cat, and he's Cpt. Jack Harkness and he can. Don't get me wrong, I find his antics amusing most of the time. (Including the time he went on some kind of catnip bender and tore apart the laundry area of the house and then slept on his handiwork.) But this was not one of the times I wanted to be amused by Jack, instead I needed Jack to do a job.

Jack said “Piss off.” Turned around and promptly left the room. For a moment Pepper and I stared at one another in shock, though I'm not sure why. It's not as if Jack's attitude was anything new to either of us.

“You go get him, he's your cat.” She tells me.

Her logic is sound. So I leave the room and go find Jack. He is lazily strolling around the kennel area, with no particular destination clear. I scoop him up and he immediately demands I put him down. Jack is an affectionate cat, on his terms only. And he makes this very clear.

I try to sooth him. “Look, this is going to be awesome. You get to eat a mouse. Well I probably won't let you eat it, because that's gross. But I will let you kill it, and let's be honest, that's the fun part.” I firmly believe all cats are serial killers in the making. The only reason they don't go about creating mass panic and slaughtering people by the dozens is size (which is why people who own tigers freak me out.)

I get Jack back to Pepper's room and bring him inside. By this point he is being quite vocal about his disapproval of the man handling. He is indigent and adamant that he put down immediately. I oblige his demands, by putting him in the closet.

Once again operating under the theory that Cats-are-useful-because-they-kill-mice, and with the memories of how quick and eager my childhood barn cats were to hunt mice, I assume Jack will simply catch the scent of the mouse and be too distracted by his instincts to murder and maim to worry about escaping the closet.

I mentioned earlier that the problem with Jack is that he's a bit of a fucker, right? Yeah, I forgot to factor Jack's natural tendency to be a bit of an asshole into the equation. So while he did for a moment catch the scent of the mouse and show temporary interest in pursuing it, the second he realized this was what we wanted. He took off.

He left the room, leaping over the baby gate at the door with what I'm pretty sure was the cat version of “So long, suckers!”

And No Fucks were given that day.

“That's it!” Pepper announces. “Cats are fired!”

“That cat is a bastard.” I declare, mostly because I felt like stating the obvious was necessary at this point.

“He's your cat.” Pepper reminds me, which is her go-to response whenever Jack does something we find annoying. She likes to remind me his existence in this house is due to my bleeding heart.

“Yeah yeah. We still have two dogs. Let's get some more stuff cleared out of the closet and then bring in Sissy.”

She's pretty, and she knows it.

Sissy is my English Shepherd. A retired agility and trick dog she spent the first year(ish) of her life being virtually feral. We figure she survived largely by hunting for her own food. This we have seen backed up by several instances of hunting small animals (and birds) while hiking. Along with Myles, Pepper's golden, as her cohort. The two of them have eaten and/or killed several ground squirrels, gophers, field mice and one very unfortunate desert snake. We know they will hunt and kill this mouse. We are confident the dogs will not fail us where the cats clearly have.

At this point we had underestimated our own excitement level. And as we returned to pulling more things out of the closet, the mouse appeared again. He dashed across an opening on the floor and vanished into a pile of shoes.

Pepper and I in unison shouted “MOUSE!” And then we both screamed. I can tell you that one of us screamed like a girl. And one of us screamed like a little 12 year old girl. I refuse to divulge which is which. To protect the innocent and/or guilty.

And so began a dance with the mouse. Every time we would find him, he would dart out of his hiding space and find another. This would illicit shrieks of terror and we would leap back away from closet. In short we were probably as freaked by the mouse as he was by us. At one point Pepper pointed out the irony of two grown adults being afraid of a tiny field mouse. I in return pointed out the tiny field mouse was fast and clearly was on performance enhancing drugs, and there for capable of anything. And that I had never personally seen a mouse roid-rage attack, but I'm sure it would be bloody and violent and we would be helpless to stop it.

When we had enough space in the closet clear to bring in a dog. Pepper grabbed Sissy. I remained on guard duty with the mouse, humming to myself and trying to recount any movies in which the dude left holding the flash light and keeping watch didn't die a horrible death. Nothing came to mind.

Sissy came into the room with Pepper, looking very confused about what we were doing. We pointed towards the closet and kept telling her to get “Get the mouse, Sissy! Get the mouse!”

She obediently put her head down and sniffed. But immediately looked up at us like we were crazy people.

I decided if she saw the mouse she would hunt it. Remembering a hair raising incident a few years ago in which a friend's parakeet I was watching escaped her cage, and Sissy attempted to eat it mid-air. (She missed, the bird survived.)

So once again we began pulling things out of the closet. One at a time. Gingerly. I picked everything up like it was TNT and going to go off at any second. Pepper held onto Sissy's collar and stood behind me at this point. Some how thinking I would be her human shield.

It didn't take long before we found the mouse again. And while I told myself I was looking for it, and to hold my shit together like a man, the second it went zipping across an open space I shrieked and flung myself backwards. I was not alone in this as Pepper did the same, pointing wildly with a finger and howling at poor confused Sissy to “GET IT GET IT GET IT!”

Sissy was so thrown by our shrieks and shivers she just stood there, staring. Not that I entirely blame her, I'm sure it was a pretty ridiculous sight.

A few more attempts with Sissy yielded the same result; a very confused dog and a mouse still lose in the closet. Taking pity on the confused dog we fired her from the job and put her in my room. Pepper then went to get Myles. Myles is less sensitive compared to Sissy, so we thought he would tolerate our shrieks with more fortitude. Myles is also single-handedly responsible for eating three gophers, four mice, and one dead rodent that may or may not have been a mole at some point in it's life. We thought for sure Myles would catch the mouse and eat it. As an added bonus, Myles was familiar with hunting terms and knew how to find things were asking for (though we had never specifically asked him to hunt down a mouse, or anything living for that matter.)

This photo tells you everything you need
to know about Myles. Everything.

She came in the room with Myles, who was very happy to see me. Myles sort of views me as his absentee step father. He constantly seeks my acknowledgment and approval, like in doing so, some how he will be a man. Because I know this, and because I too am a bit of a fucker, I often tease Myles by refusing to acknowledge his desperate attempts to impress me (usually be bringing me a toy of some sort and offering to show it to me a thousand times.) (I do most of the time give in eventually and acknowledge him, but his desperation is funny.)

I fend Myles off with a dismissive “Yes. I'm happy to see you too. But we have serious business to do here, man.”

Once again we ready ourselves to face the closet. I pick up a small backpack, that I am sure the mouse is hiding under. So certain am I that I tell myself, again, to hold my shit together. To be ready to tell Myles to get it.

Sure enough. The mouse was under the backpack. And with out fail Pepper and I both lose our decorum, shriek like over caffeinated little girls and fling ourselves backwards, safely out of the mouse's path. Myles, who is not the sharpest tool in the shed, panics. Worried about what was worrying us he completely forgets about his command to hunt and comes rushing at us. Trying to offer doggy comfort and aid. This is not what we want. So we try again to get him to just sniff around in the closet. This was the dog we had watched track a gopher underground for twenty yards so he could eat it when it popped out of it's little hidey-hole in the ground (fleeing from Sissy who was digging a trench through the earth to get to him.)

Myles just remains convinced that the world is ending because both of his role models are freaking out. And if the humans are worried, clearly the sky is falling and we're all doomed. I try to compose myself as I look at the closet problem.

“Maybe if we clear it out? Leave the mouse with no where to go to?” I suggest.

“Yeah, we could do that. He couldn't escape Myles then, right?” Pepper says hopefully.

“Right.” I agree, more to convince myself of the plan than because I believed it was actually going to work.

This house from Hoarders looks about right.

While this adventure had begun with Pepper cleaning out her closet. It had now been reduced to a man, well mouse, hunt. And her bedroom had the contents of her entire closet spread across it. Her bed was buried under a pile of books and movies and clothing. Her floor had a small network of patches you could weave through but no space particularly to stand that wasn't directly in front of the closet. The room was so messed up, we couldn't even close the closet doors, too much stuff in the way.

We began to slowly remove everything from the closet. And by we, I mean me. Pepper remained standing back, taking things from me as I handed them to her. But I, as the man of the house (and I use this term loosely, given my actions previously that night my manhood was rightly being called into question) was relegated to the task of directly facing the mouse.

When enough space had been cleared for Myles, he voluntarily got into the closet, staring at us with an expression that clearly said “This is what you want...right?” It was. Sort of. We kept asking him to hunt, and he kept getting confused. He got out of the closet and brought us a toy. Then he brought us a slipper.

It was around this time that the mouse appeared again. Darting from between stacks of books and DVDs. Cue irrational shrieks of terror. Myles was not cool with this, and his brain dissolved. It was okay though, because really he was in good company by this point.

In an active of Mercy, Pepper put Myles back outside to be tormented by my shepherd puppy, Banshee. Trust us, it was far kinder a fate.

“What if we took out everything and then tossed Widget and Jack in there?” I suggested trying to figure out how we were going outsmart the mouse. Really the one suggestion we should have made which was to put down mouse traps, never crossed either of our minds. Were determined that some animal some where would be of use to us, damnit.

Slowly, with a methodical precision, I removed the stacks of books and movies (and promptly deposited them all over Pepper's bed – who needs sleep right?) When the closet was finally clear we had the sudden realization that there was no mouse. He was gone. Vanished. Speedy Gonzalas'd his ass out of there.

Pepper and I looked at one another, and then at the mess around us.

“There is a mouse...in my room...” Pepper whimpered.

“Maybe we should have left him in the closet?” I suggested. “Perhaps he was in the closet for a reason. Maybe he wasn't ready to come out of the closet, and we forced him. Now Rodrigo's going to start doing drugs, and poppers and circuit parties and we've set him up for a life time of addiction and sexual promis--”

“SHUT UP.”

I shut up. I just keep looking around, and finally my eyes land on her open suitcase. “Maybe he's going on vacation?” I offer. “It's like a children's book. The country mouse who travels across the country...”

“He had better not be in my suitcase! How the hell am I going to explain that to air port security?!”

“I dunno. Just say 'AH HA! There is the bastard!' That usually works.”

“For who?”

“I dunno! People! What do you want from me?! I'm a farm kid who just spent the last hour shrieking like my balls were in a vice over a fucking mouse! Clearly my brain is fried!” Not to mention I had named him, Rodrigo.

“I need to go to work tomorrow. I am going to bed.” On cue we both look at her bed which is piled several feet high with stuff.

“Yeah about that...” I say.

We spent the rest of the night trying to recoup our dignity, while moving the stacks of books and movies to the would-be-a-dinning-room-if-we-had-a-table (let's face it, I'm 30 years old and still live like a college kid. Peter Pan Complex Ahoy!) She ended up going to bed around 1am. We never did find the mouse again. And TSA never pulled her aside to ask why there was a mouse in her luggage.

Where the books & DVDs moved.

The moral of the story is that our cats are worthless. And our dogs are pretty close to worthless if the humans can't be trusted to keep it together. It was not my finest, or manliest moment. But it makes for a really funny story.