Life Matters - April 17, 2024
“Vee get too soon olt and too late schmart,” So quoth the Deutscha, including this one sometimes, with one such epiphany dawning on my senses this past week. I told my family, “I think I’ve now made every mistake there is to make” the day I flung dog poop in my own face; but that’s a story I’ll leave for another day! To my chagrin I discover myself still in the habit of making mistakes; at times even the same one twice. My dad was understanding about mistakes; I suspect he made a few himself; but he did tell us (or was it Grandpa Lapp?) not to make the same mistake twice. Good advice Grandpa, I’ll try not to do it again! So I say to myself.
When we moved into our new house, going on three weeks ago now, there were still a few details to take care of. We lived with hard water for a week and without a cookstove for a week and a day. Our cookstove is an LP gas one, and I tried in vain (partly because of an, as yet, unfamiliar town and partly/mostly because of my lack of expertise) to find what I needed to hook it up to a 20 lb. tank until we get landscaping done and prep a pad to set up a more permanent tank. After several vain attempts, I managed to find someone that knows more than I do (no surprise there, right?) about LP hookups. I called him on Thursday, he came on Friday pm and in less than an hour the job was done. We had a functional cookstove! He stayed awhile then, we had a good visit, he's a new friend, and I hope the feeling is mutual.
Sadie and I have mutual feelings about the cookstove, it has been a good stove, has served us well, and it fits in well with our new kitchen arrangement. So it was with trusting anticipation that I knew she would have something really good, baked for supper. The grill in the garage had done okay, but even a good cook (my wife is one) does better with a good cookstove.
The sun was dipping past four o’clock when I stepped into the house with questing nostrils and musing on what’s for supper. Whatever it was, I knew it would be good. But wait, what is that stench?! Where is it coming from? No, wait… the smell of fried mice could only be coming from one place… The cookstove… With sinking dread and a cursory examination (consisting of my nose and olfactory senses) my suspicions were confirmed and I could only hope the cute, dirty, little critters hadn’t torn up the insulation, ( heat resistant fiberglass) encasing the cookstove box, beyond repair. After opening windows, we sat down to a delicious supper and a chill breeze wafting fresh air through the house. When the freshly baked apple crisp arrived at the table with a container of vanilla ice cream I could almost imagine ourselves being too “cool” or “chill” (depending on which era one is from) of a little family to be disturbed by something as little as a mouse. But I could not escape the feeling of “déjà vu.” This stove (like one we discarded decades ago) had been in storage for 5 months and I should have known better…. did know better…. should’ve used moth balls… should’ve boxed it… could’ve… “Vee get too soon olt and too late schmart,” I muttered to myself later as I removed somewhere between 40 and 1000 screws to get at the insulated oven box where I had spied a mound of tufted insulation. After having removed a back panel and shining under the top with a good flashlight. And after using a shop vac to suck up some stray mouse turds while vainly hoping they were the only sign of the culprit.
The screws removed, I lifted the front of the last top panel of steel with one hand, turned on the shop vac with the other and watched the tufts of insulation disappear into its sucking maw. Then I stared in transfixed, grossed out fascination at the mouse nest size crater that the tufts of insulation had been covering. The filth was unbelievable. That is, had not the stench verified it. The mice must’ve moved out after turning their house into an outhouse! Baked on mouse poop came off with baking soda, hot water, and paper towels. The shop vac sucked up spots of soiled insulation here and there. I sprinkled half a box of baking soda on the top insulation and down the sides, (just in case) filled in the crater with insulation sparingly removed from the bottom, then, with Kenny’s help, put it all back together again with those somewhere between 40 and 1000 screws and only had three screws left over… which isn’t many considering it was 11:00 pm by that time, right?
The next day was Saturday, and a beautiful day it was, as I stepped inside the house mid-afternoon to the welcome home aroma of freshly baked bread and Sadie handing me a slice with pats of butter melting into it! I was richly rewarded!
I think I learned that lesson thoroughly and the hard way. I didn’t have any warring encounters with any mice. They took what they wanted and left me with their urine saturated feces. A sneaky sort of cold war.
I remember well a certain Cold War. But as “we” stared suspiciously at a then-communist behemoth in the northern hemisphere, its “kumradt” to the south was slowly, stealthily, injecting communist thought and agenda into American education. Via an ungodly and therefore undiscerning National Education Association (NEA), thereby infiltrating the thought patterns of the vulnerable younger set. We are left to clean up the mess. Nevermind the olt; perhaps… vee get too late schmart?
Life Matters!