EAT MY DUST

Back by popular demand.  Okay, back by some demand.  All right, I confess: back because I had something to write about.  Hope you enjoy and will sign up to receive my blog regularly.

EAT MY DUST

Every once in a while we have to do the dirty job.  Yes, I am talking about cleaning out the garage.
We may reach the decision to engage in this nasty task for several reasons: we can no longer get the car in the garage; we can park the car in the garage but cannot open the driver's side door to get out; there are no more flat open areas on which to put “stuff;” the garbage can is back there somewhere but we can't get to it; or, and this is a big motivator, there is the odorous smell of something dead.  All of the above compelled me to decide that the year 2012 would be my year to again clean the garage.

I say again because I am sure I cleaned it once before.  I just can't remember when.  Yes, it was that long ago.

But ask yourself.  Have I lost any tools lately?  Any missing children?  Can I put my hands on that new pair of work gloves I bought last summer?  And, of course, who died and decided to make my garage their eternal resting place?  (I can always hope it is a neighbor's cat; like the one that got locked in the garage several years ago and almost died of starvation.  I like cats, although I am not a cat lover.  I like them the least when they use my lawn or garden for their litter box – or take up a death watch in my garage.)

I always start by moving everything I can out to the driveway.  This alone reveals many lost treasures.  There under the basket on the workbench is that pair of gloves I bought to replace the ones I lost last year.  Aha!  There behind the workbench, on the floor, is that pair of gloves I lost.  Ah well, now I have two, albeit slightly moldy, work gloves.  What's this at the end of this tangle of electric cord?  Oh yes, my leaf blower.  I guess I don't need it anymore, especially since I haven't used it in god knows how long.  Something to sell on Craigslist.

Move things out and put other things away and voila, I can begin cleaning and sweeping.  Next comes the moment of decision.  What am I going to put back in the garage?  Hopefully, some things will be discarded.

Happily, while moving things to the driveway, I discovered the source of “the smell.”  You got it.  I found three dead, slightly petrified, mice.  Three cheers for d-CON.

We used to find abandoned mice nests and gobs of their droppings in drawers and on counter tops from their winter-time residency.  Then I started putting out d-CON in the fall.  As winter approaches the little critters like to move into the garage because it provides better protection from the elements.  I wanted to discourage that.  My hope was that most of them would take the bait back to their outdoor nests and die there, along with the rest of their family.    It must have worked since I only found three dead mice.  One or two of the less petrified must have “taken the bait” late in the winter, otherwise I would not have smelled them.  Now, however, they have gone to that big garage in the sky, and as far as I am concerned they are in a better place.

We can now get the car in the garage – and we can get the driver-side door open.  I have two pair of work gloves, one pair of which I wear to take the garbage can out to the curb for pickup.  And, fortunately, we found no lost children.

It may take a week or two to get the dust out of my sinus passages.