EWWW and also, OH NO SHE DIDN'T!

ok. i'm trying to regulate my breathing so that i don't hyperventilate.

i just discovered that mice have been visiting (ransacking, rather) my snack drawer.

MICE.

not only do they visit, but they either stay for long enough to completely gorge themselves and then shit repeatedly, or we're talking about approximately 500 mice. Ok, maybe it's not that bad. But maybe it is!

Yeah, it's my fault, but what the fuck? I have never had a mouse-related problem with my snack drawer here or anywhere else, for that matter, including the office in the Chicago suburbs where we always saw mice running from bush to bush in front of the building. Snack drawer-related problems have always been more like crap, how long has this pudding been in here? and how am i going to fit three rolls of rice cakes in this drawer?

MICE!! I cannot express with appropriate vehemence how much i truly despise mice. i've wondered my whole life why i am so frightened and utterly repulsed by them. after all, gigantic Rottweilers and randy stallions (which will attempt to mount humans) don't bother me in the slightest. but mice? devil spawns. i think it has something to do with my aversion to all nocturnal creatures. there is something just not right about things with long tails and beady eyes that creep about and handle all their business affairs after everyone has gone to sleep. they are naughty and sneaky and moochy.

I think (and hope) that this is a new problem, considering i open my snack drawer several times a day and didn't notice until this morning that there are very obvious gnaw marks in my hot chocolate packets. half of one of my Goetze's caramels has been gutted. THERE IS MOUSE POOP. A LOT. and that was before I even got the back of the drawer, where i discovered much to the dismay of my gag reflexes, that the mice had dragged TWO packets of oatmeal under where my magazines chill in hanging files. And more poop. Waaaay more poop. At this point i seriously have to close my eyes and tell myself to breathe and swallow, just keep swallowing, to keep the throw-uppy juices down.

(By the way, the mess is still not dealt with. Baby steps.)

I have been providing OATMEAL to MICE. And when they're done eating the healthy stuff their mommies allow them to eat dessert. Caramels with sweet icing filling and dry hot chocolate. Why, i'm the fanciest mouse cafeteria they've ever encountered!

The vacuum in the cleaning supply closet bears attachments that do not attach to it, and no, the business end of the vacuum doesn't fit into the drawer. I tried. I just alerted the other receptionist so she can tell the pest control people about it, which, DO YOUR JOB, pest people! and she said she'd leave a note for the cleaning lady to take care of it. Now, you might be thinking I have found a great solution. Someone else will remove the mess. But somehow I just can't imagine sitting next to this all day. That, and it seems so mean to make the cleaning lady deal with this nastiness. Call me codependant.

And now, I feel like a total baby. M. just called and I burst into my story with all appropriate disgust and he says "yeah, well, Nick just got hit by a car." Nick is M.'s best friend at work. M. tells me that a car coming down the street they were paving suddenly slammed into a parked car. The driver, a 24-year-old pregnant woman, kept going and drove into several of those orange barrels they always have around road construction. She then got herself stuck up on a curb and Nick walked up to the car and told her she needed to stop, didn't she realize she had just hit a car? The woman smacked her car into Nick's legs, then reversed, then gunned the engine and plowed into him, and he rode on the hood of her car screaming STOPPP and she continued another block, steadily accelerating, until a truck coming the opposite way (one of the work trucks for Nick and M.'s employer, which was towing a trailer of equipment) blocked her path, and she proceeded to slam into the trailer. Somehow Nick still had the wherewithall to reach into the car and grab the keys from the ignition while the woman furiously scrambled to get out of the passenger side. She offered money to them if they'd please not call the police. Then she punched Nick in the nose.

The cops came and she tried to fight them off. They halted all street work because they need to take pictures of all the stuff she hit. It turns out they are very familiar with this young and 4 months pregnant crack addict whose mother had just died. Who, by the way, has a wicked staph infection, did anyone touch her? Well yes, Nick touched her a lot while he was trying to restrain her after she basically attempted to kill him.

Whoa. What mice? Am feeling totally stupid. But thankfully a very nice coworker just came along and pulled the drawer out and dumped the contents into the trash for me, officially becoming my favorite person in the office. Ok, I'm off to 409 the crap outta my drawer lest those little bastards sniff a little crumb I might have missed. There will be no missing of crumbs, only repeated mental sighs of relief that that crazy beotch didn't hit M.