Of Mice and Flashlights

So this morning I'm in the shower contemplating field mice. It's winter now, and living in a relic of a house in New England we have our fair share coming in through the cellar hole and scurrying around in our cabinets in the middle of the night. Honestly, they're pretty unobtrusive. A few tiny droppings in the far corners, the occasional tiny hole in a garbage bag, the pitter patter of little feet across the ceilings every now and then.

But the woman of the house is terrified of them.

There is nothing intrinsically terrifying about field mice. In fact, they're cute little brown balls of fluff. They're not at all like those insidious man-made white mice with the beady wicked little red eyes. You know the ones. The pet stores keep hundreds off them in those Plexiglas boxes where you can pick them up. I completely understand being freaked out by those. They're saboteurs whose only mission is to get you lift them up in your hand so that they can leap to the floor. Then they scurry up your pant leg and attack your naughty bits causing you to hop around on one leg, shrieking and flailing your arms about, thereby liberating all of their enslaved animal pet shop friends. Field mice on the other hand are actually quite charming. They have delicate little noses sprinkled with dainty whiskers, and beautiful black eyes. Eyes like reflecting pools so deep you want to swim in them. Eyes filled with wonder and delight. Eyes that look as if they have just seen the face of God himself.

Which they have.

For if you're close enough to a field mouse to look that carefully at its eyes, its because it's in a snap trap. And not only has it just seen the Great Fisher of Field Mice in the Sky, but the reason its eyes are that widely open is that a few minutes earlier it was thinking "Peanut butter, peanut butter, I love peanut butter... SNAP! HOLY FUCK I'M DEAD!

***

Thwack across my head in the middle of the night.

"DO YOU HEAR THAT?!?"

Now when you whack a man across the head in the middle of the night because of a strange noise in his castle, you must understand that the otherwise out of shape, middle aged, pasty bald guy who is normally winded after the second flight of stairs transforms instantly into a crouching steely-eyed Silent Ninja of Death. I am a coiled spring. Two double back flips across the bed room and I'll have the pistols out of the super-secret biometric gun safe, and roundhouse my way through the kitchen, blazing away guns akimbo. The army of assassins who have entered my home will perish in a well choreographed slow motion melee of karate chops and hot lead.

"THAT!!!" She cries.

"whaaaat???" I hiss.

"THAT SCRATCHING IN THE CUPBOARD! THERE'S A MOUSE IN THERE!"

I deflate like a released balloon, and fart fart fart my way back into the comfortable milieu of out of shape, middle aged, pasty baldguydom.

"Jesus woman... it's just a mouse." I mutter in exasperation whilst pulling a pillow over my head. I am secretly happy to shed the Silent Ninja of Death cloak. Probably would've had a coronary anyway. But the adrenaline dump has done awful things to my bladder, and now I must relieve myself as well.

"I'll set a couple of traps under the sink." I grumble while getting out from under the blankets, though a delightful thought has just occurred to me, and secretly I am pleased to be leaving the bedroom. I'll be able to use my new flash light while setting the traps.

Flashlights are entertaining no matter how old you are. Here's this shiny tube. You click a button. It makes light. You click the button again. The light goes away. Sure, sure there's science that explains how putting a couple of small cylindrical objects into a slightly larger cylindrical object suddenly gives you power over light and dark, day and night, but deep down inside we all know it's magic. And not just ordinary darkest Africa type black magic. This is akin to Stargate black magic. You could tell me that aliens gave the ancient Egyptians flashlights and that's how the pyramids were built, and though I might shrug it off, secretly I would BELIEVE.

Anyway, the biggest problem with flashlights is children. They always find them. And after 37 seconds of play play play click click click with the flash light and they're bored again. Clonk. The light hits the floor, rolls under the couch while still on, and it isn't discovered again for at least three days by your wife. And she doesn't bother to check the batteries, just returns it to it's proper place. So naturally, when you actually need it, like say...I dunno... when your arch nemesis' Secret Assassins of Doom are invading your house, or perhaps a mouse is scratching in the cabinet, or the power goes out, — or you're all in imminent danger of dying because the house is filled with smoke that the alarm didn't warn you about because no one bothered to check the batteries in that after the last time it went off when you were at work either, — the flash light, or course, is stone dead

Not this time.

I have the Mother Of All Flashlights. MOAF for short. It's so big no child can heft it. It's so powerful it must be plugged into a wall socket for at least a day before you can use it. 37 gazillion candle watts of raw, unmitigated, intruder blinding, finding things under the couch empowerment packaged like a pistol. You actually have to hold it like a firearm and pull a trigger to engage the lighting elements. I bought it on a whim on my last trip to Home Depot. It was there at the check out counter and I couldn't resist. The heavens opened and the angels wept with envy as I made my way through the parking lot to my truck.

Anyone who's ever purchased a flashlight,— be it one of those gimmick Mag Lites no bigger than a cigarette lighter, or the MOAF I know held in my hand —, knows there's only one thing you can do when you get a new flashlight. You have to point at your own face and turn it on. I had to wait 24 hours, but come on, 37 gazillion candle watts of brightness? I could wait.

When the moment finally arrived, I stood in the kitchen and slowly pointed the saucer sized lens directly at my noggin. A wry smile of gleeful anticipation crept across my face. There was a barely perceptible clicking followed by an audible hum as my thumb depressed the trigger. The cameramen in the movie in my head starring me panned out and the room circled round. Slowly... slowly... thumb depresessing.... humming growing louder...


....wooooOOOOOOOOOOSH!

I also saw the face of God.

And then nothing else for a long, long time. Though I did slip in a pile of Magnetix and slam my head off the counter while Theresa yelled: "Did you just point that thing in your eyes?!? What the hell is wrong with you? No wonder our kids are so screwed up!" And other lovely things of that nature.

"Ummm... no. It just sort of went off..." I managed to stammer as I groped my way towards the couch. I sat down. Brain cells were popping. I could see, or rather feel their iridescent sparkle flare across a field brightest green. Time slowed down and I was dancing in a pasture of painted flowers that dripped away when I touched them like in that apoplectically horrible Robin Williams movie where he goes to heaven and has to go save his wife from hell.

"Have you seen my keys?" Theresa interrupts my wide-eyed religious reverie.

"Are they bright green? 'Cause that's all I've seen for the last four and a half minutes or so."

"Oh you're are such a horrible, useless man."

She's hitting me. I think. Or maybe it's one of the kids. Could be anyone for that matter. Who cares? I'd just seen God.

She storms out, and I call after her:

"Don't worry dear, I'm not Robin Williams. I think you'll enjoy it down there. Probably let you run the PTA or something, too."