Church Mouse Chester

I decided that we should probably give Chester, the church mouse, some incentive to leave, so I moved the food supply, and planned to get some sort of back packing equipment for him, you know, something that looks sort of like a trap, but one that would let him keep his head. I figured Chester couldn’t be much bigger than a few inches, as the crack under the door, his entryway, was very small. I went to my superior to seek advice.

My boss, the business administrator is one of the most efficient people I know. He wants everything to run smooth as silk, and he works very hard to make that happen. It’s a gift. And sometimes it makes me smile. His efforts to be productive irritate the equipment at times. The office equipment that resides in the copy room has a rep already, I’ve mentioned the psychotic copy machine and the rough-guy riso before. The human Business Admin and the rowdy machines have a never-ending feud. Other than that, my boss can jump right into a problem and nip it better than Barney Fife. Knowing this is why I was not surprised the very next morning after venting my angst over sharing my office with a rodent, I had a visit from Bart the Big Bad Exterminating Man.

Bart used to be a manly man, but the chemicals in his job became a hazard for his brain, and now , well, Bart is just Bart. He battles depression, being in the business of killing, its no wonder. But he talks tough. And he’s good at what he does.
Bart came in announcing, “ I hear we’ve got rodent problems”. Bart is a team player.
“You wanna show me where we’re keeping him? What we’re feeding him?”
I stepped back and pointed to the closet doors, then slipped off my shoes and climbed into my ergonomically correct desk chair.
“um hmmm. Oh, yes,… Let’s see… yep. Ah… hmmm. Okay.” He wiped his brow and leaned against the door frame.
“Let me think a minute what we’ve got here.” His eyes rolled back in his head as it rested against the frame, and his arm began to involuntarily pump the poison pumper can he kept with him at all times.
“ I’ll tell you what we’ve got her, missy.” Bart slid his tongue across his front teeth and opened his eyes. They turned toward me, but I was having such a hard time balancing in my ergonomically correct desk chair that his eyes could not track me, so he just looked past me when he spoke.
“We’re got a church mouse here, Lady. That’s what this is … yeap. A regular church mouse. Right here in your closet.”
I waited to hear something I didn’t already know. Then I wondered if I should act relieved, maybe Bart thought that I had been thinking that I had something else living in my closet like an alligator or an iquana, but I just nodded and held onto my computer monitor.
“I’ll tell you one thing I bet you don’t know, though.”
I waited. His eyebrows raised to ready position .We looked at each other, well…. I tried to look at him, but everytime I looked up I lost my balance, so I just kept my head down and said, “What?”
“We’re not gonna have one here much longer. That’s what.”


Church Chick