Encounter With Bell and Howl

Thank goodness there are only two cabinets in my kitchen. Any more than that and I'd have gone out of my mind.

Thank goodness there are only two cabinets in my kitchen. Any more than that and I'd have gone out of my mind.

Unfortunately, we have a kitchen door. I tried to hire a carpenter to have it removed, but he told me that it is an integral part of the wall structure. Both the door and the kitchen window have to stay.

I blame the TV, of course. It never should have been on at that hour. The programs aren't so bad, it's those sneaky ads that bamboozle naive viewers that did the damage. Ack! Phbbt! If only I had remembered to unplug the set.

Meet Bell and Howl. You'll never have a better introduction to them than I did early Thursday morning. Sometimes, it's better to be half asleep than fully awake. That way these guys can send you into orbit in a somnanbulistic state.

OK. So it's early, it's morning and it's cold. I sit down on the throne and am instantly bombarded by percussion cymbals, bleeting blats, and blasting whizzers which crescendo in one shrill monotonous whistle, guaranteed to shatter every Aunt Jemima bottle in the house.

Now, I've never spent much time measuring how high a body can hightail it off a can in inches and feet, but I felt my head hit the ceiling before I landed on my feet and peered into the bowl.

"What the . . . . ."

Found a white, mouse-shaped, plastic stick-on still vibrating little wimps and hollars on the underneath side of the seat.

Thems Bell and Howls are better than coffee any day of the week to get a body moving and all charged up.

Not in a lifetime would you believe how shell shocked I felt which is why I didn't pay attention as I opened the front door to retrieve the morning paper.

The minute the door opened a clanging and a bleeting blat, blasting whizzers AND a rakkety clack ricocheted off the porch columns. It's shrill warning was guaranteed to shatter glass, and set off all the neighborhood car alarms.

The muscle over my left eye started twitching and my fingers spazzed in nervous tension as they searched the doorframe and found -- a mouse-shaped object.

Coffee sets most folks nerves a-jitter but the thick black liquid brewed Louisiana-style calms mine down. Boy! Did I need a cuppa Java. In search of a cup, I headed for the kitchen and opened the cabinet door. Bell and Howl will never get invited to sing Kerokee. Their yowl bent my eardrum and spun the Cochlea's spiral into a straight line. It never knew what hit it.

The plastic mouse had struck again.

By day's end, they could-a carried me out in a basket and forgotten the case. Talk about being paranoid. I was afraid to move.

My neighbor, Percy, stopped in on his way home from work. He owns the house next door but most of the time he hangs out here.

At first, he didn't see me. My backbone had liquefied like jellyfish plasma and was pasted in the corner of the dining room wall.

He knew right off something was wrong. "What the heck are you doing cowering in the corner?"

"Ssssh! You'll set them off again."

"Set what off?"

"The howling mouses."

He hunkered down in the corner beside me, and using that voice one reserves for children and small dogs, said: "There, there now, tell me all about it."

"I don't know how they've gotten in but they've invaded the house. These little plastic monsters glue themselves to windows and doors and ah . . . " (I was going to tell him about the stool but decided that would be too embarrassing.)

Percy snickered. Then, chortled. It wouldn't be quite right to say he rolled on the floor with laughter but that would come close to describing it.

Temper has wonderful restorative powers for backbones. Standing, with hands on hips, I screeched: "Stop that! It is not funny."

He sobered instantly. "I was only trying to help."

"Help what?" I asked incredulously.

"Well, you said your grandkids were coming to visit."

"Not until tomorrow. But what does that have to do with this?"

"The stick-on alarms parent-proof a house. I saw it on TV. Bell and Howell Alarms. About 20 of them on sale for under 40 bucks."

"And . . . ."

"Well, you know, like for when a toddler is reaching for roach killer under the sink, you hear the alarm, and get there before he's laying on his back, glassy eyed, and stiffening up with rigor mortis. Figured this way, they could play while you holed-up in your office and wrote your novel. I would-a told you about it, but you were sleeping."

OK. OK. So Percy's not quite a jerk, just a blister. I'm embarrassed to admit that my temper flew in the storm's face as I grabbed a broom and chased Percy out of the house, all the while, calmly listing all the death benefits he'd receive if he ever returned.

It's not that I hate my neighbors, it's their accident plans I can't stand.

The next day when my daughter dropped off her teenaged sons, I offered the boys a bonus for every alarm they could find and disembowel.

Toddlers, indeed!
Encounter With Bell and Howl © 2005 Chaeli Sullivan