Pronged Mousery

If you're looking for paradise, don't rent this house. It will be vacant in six months, but be forewarned. You don't want it.

Neither did I. Yet, the morning I woke to frigid temps in my RV with my teeth chattering, blue fingertips and hair standing straight up because it was too cold to hang limply, I decided to accept a short term lease on this property.

It's not a bad house. Sports a wood-burning stove twice the size of the living room, an electric range which mischieviously chars every meal, and a heavy-duty sprinkler system which has a mind of its own. Periodically, it waters the lawn. Which, I suppose, would be fine in summer.

However, now that temps are hovering around 18 degrees, when the sprinkler system clocks in to perform overtime work, its water geysers leave 72 perpendicular stalagmites scattered around the front yard. By dead reckoning, I figure that's approximately one every thirteen inches.

It's not the ice pyramids which upset me. It's the crowd which gathers outside the six-foot, double-paned, picture windows that irrigates my irritation. It's like being showcased directly behind one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

As a bonus, a household mouse is included in the monthly rent. He has a picky appetite, though. Only eats macaroni products and beaded key chains.

Despite these little inconveniences, the house would be tolerable, if you were a 1920's-type personality residing in the 1950's. I mean, after all, it does have indoor plumbing and running water.

No. It's those pesky wall sockets that some previous occupant installed more for nuisance value than as a viable outlet that troubles me.

Have you ever tried to plug a three-pronged plug into a two-prong socket?

Doesn't work worth a darn.

It wouldn't be so bad if all modern electric devices had alternative-energy plugs. Flick a switch and the third prong slides into a hidden receptacle. Failing that, they should at least be fence-cutter friendly. Heck, those big tools, which will snap 50-mm wire smartly in half, won't even leave chew marks on those third prongs.

So the natural course of action is to walk two blocks east, round the corner, then walk two blocks south to Ace Hardware and buy two-prong extension cords.

THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS.

Those streets are icy. I was so busy watching the SUV and a Toyota nearly collide that I paid scant attention to the Hummer sliding sideways towards me. It was on a direct collision course with my body and I was too dumbfounded to move out of its way. It was like watching a movie without quite realizing you are a key character in the show.

The Hummer spun round a time or two. A ballerina performing pirouettes couldn't have done better. Wondrously, it stopped before the point of impact.

That was an amazing spectacle! Yet more so, was the driver of this monstrous machine.

The door creaked open and a frail eighty-pound lady who smelled like grandmother's apple pie stepped out, gingerly testing the ice with each foot step. As she reached my side, her spidery arms coiled around me. Her voice wavered as she asked: "Are you all right?"

"Sure," I mumbled feeling like an ancient Redwood hugging a wispy young Aspen.

Her smile trembled, yet bravely she offered me a ride to Ace Hardware. Her finger shook as she admonished me: "It's much too cold to walk."

I considered my options. Freeze mid-step or become a casuality of this lady's good intentions. Walking seemed the better bet. So with gratitude for her offer, yet firmly resolved to arrive the hardware store fully operational and in fine physical mettle, I gently declined.

The Ace clerks are friendly, intelligent and not totally informed regarding their stock. In answer to my query, the live-wire, super-charged employee gave me a superior sermon on electroballistics and grounds. While this information was packed full of details on piezoelectrics, it did not answer my question: "Do you carry two-prong plugs?"

I decided to elaborate. "It is sweet of you to enlighten me about the Edison effect, but all I want to know is, do you have those electrical devices with TWO PROJECTING PRONGS which fit into an outlet and make contact with the circuit?"

This seemed to confuse him. "Two prongs?"

"Yep. That's one more than one. But I'll take more than one two-pronged electrical cord, if you have them."

"Oh! TWO-pronged! Why didn't you say so? No. They don't make those any more."

He was wrong, of course.

Which I discovered once I found the correct aisle. In fact, they had nine hundred-and-ninety-nine two-pronged extension cords. I know it was overkill, but I bought them all.

Finding outdated merchandise these years when product supply is so limited might have been a powerful bragging accomplishment if the mouse hadn't beaten me out of it.

Yep. Like I said: you don't want to rent this house. Unless you are prepared for some serious negotiations with the rental agency. I suggest that you itemize exactly what is included in the lease. The woodburning stove, of course, the refrigerator and range. But you ought to stipulate that you want a different mouse.

One of the standard variety who eats brown sugar, crackers and expensive cheese.

Because I just don't think you'll be happy with the current house-rodent who eats pasta, beaded key chains and nine hundred-and-ninety-nine electrical cords.

And who knows? With so many businesses going belly-up, in six months when you take over the lease, two-pronged plugs might not be available.
Pronged Mousery © 2005 Chaeli Lee Sullivan