Zere is a Mouse in Zis House -- Knockara Stud Farm, Tipperary

Zere is a mouse in zis house.

Several mice, in fact. The nearest and most relevant to me is momentarily just to the right of my bed.  While I’m certainly not afraid of mice, I’m not particularly fond of them, either. I keep reminiscing to my childhood Little House on the Prairie breakfast readings, wherein I was appalled to learn that a resourceful field mouse had stolen all the hair off the top of Pa’s head to use in her nest. If I remember correctly, Pa had to wear a hat for several weeks before his hair grew back properly. As an impressionable lass of ten, I was scarred so deeply that I took to conducting a thorough search of my room every night, emptying out all my shoes and barricading any potential mouse hole with my Breyer horse plastic hay bales. So while I am hankering for a haircut, I’m still holding out for a better barber than the bold rodent beside my bed.  

Anyone? Anyone? Will someone please cut off this mass of tousled hair? If not for my sake, for yours. You people out there actually have to look at it. I only have to wear it.

Damn, there goes the mouse again. I told Maria that she might consider a cat, but she told me that a cat was quite impossible. Tubby would kill it immediately. He’s quite the killer, apparently. Maria tells me that the ancient terrier is a amateur mouser, himself. Unfortunately, dear old Tubby prefers the outdoor, gamier variety of field mouse; his refined sensibilities won’t let him dine upon the rascals already cozied up inside. However, he carries more than his fair share of live mice into the house, whereupon they join their brethren at my bedside.   

I’m sure Tubby has the best intentions.

I hear Tubby’s mice in the morning when the house is quiet and I’m drinking my coffee. They scamper along the floorboards and scurry through the cabinets. Maria has been setting traps for them, but they’re skillful enough to take the bait and leave the trap intact. The last two mornings have seen Maria puttering into the kitchen in her robe and slippers, gingerly picking up the still set trap and tsking, “And I set it so well, yes I did. So well indeed. I shall have to set it again tomorrow.”

George doesn’t wake up early enough to hear the mice, but he does hear the ghost. We were finishing up an episode of Master Chef the other night, when the floorboards above my head starting creaking rather low and painfully. George perked up.

“You hear zat?”

“The floorboards, George?”

“Yes, za floorboards. Zat is our ghost. He sometimes says to me, “Hello George, how are you doing?” And I say, “Ach, okay.” “

Leon and I have arrived at some sort of understanding. He does not follow me into the stables to eat manure anymore. I have threatened him with my pitchfork and dragged out his whining ass by the scruff of the neck too many times for him to want to sacrifice his well being for a few steaming horse turds. He knows I won’t threaten him in Maria’s presence, though. When she’s there, he greedily gobbles down as many as he can, then hightails it to the house – gloating at me from the front porch.

He no longer nearly knocks me over when I open a door and he insists on getting through first. I push his head out of the way with my knee, open the door, and generously gesture to the confused lab, “Would you like to go out, Leon?” To which he generally ponders the strange new order of things, and then trundles on through.

 He has also realized that my crotch is not for sniffing and that I do not appreciate it when he eats all of the horses’ oats before I can get the buckets to their stalls.

The one thing that cannot be helped is Leon’s god-awful gas. He’ll whine and scratch at the kitchen door until I let him in, and then he’ll lie at my feet and promptly start to fart. The combination of leftover gourmet duck liver pates and horseshit leaves something to be desired in the digestive system of this husky lab. When the stench becomes unbearable, I escape into the study. After a few minutes, Leon wakes up, realizes he’s been abandoned, and begins to whine and scratch on the study door. I’d have no qualms with just letting him whine and scratch, but I know that George would be upset. So I let in Leon.

He lies at my feet and begins to fart again.

When it’s just me, he doesn’t seem very concerned with maintaining any sort of image. I’ve seen him eat horse poo; his image is forever ruined in my book, and he knows it. But when George joins me in the kitchen, Leon feels proper shame for his extreme flatulence. This shame manifests itself in Leon standing up and moving even closer to me whenever he has to fart, that I might look like the guilty party in the presence of the mutually respected George. 

I was enjoying a solid two minutes of reliable internet the other day, when George abruptly burst into the kitchen.

“Aimee,” George urged, “I must show you somesing.”

“Okay,” obliged Aimee, sadly closing Maria’s laptop and curiously following George into the study.

“Haf you heard of Venetian glass?” George gestured to a large, beautifully crafted glass lamp in the corner. “It is vorld famous. It is manufactured some miles sous of Venice. Anyvay, ven I ended my first marriage, I left my vife everysing – my sirty million dollar house, my  cars, everysing. Za only sing I took vas zis lamp. Because I liked it.”

A few difficult things volunteering with the people you’re living with:

You’re always on edge and wondering if there’s something you ought to be doing. If George says to me, “Vere is za boss, Aimee?” he does not mean, “Vere is Maria?” He means, “Vere is Maria and vy are you not helping her?”

People get into routines -- especially elderly people. Temporary live-in helpers disrupt routines. George has traveled the globe, survived World War II by eating bark soup, and has had near death experiences in just about every dangerous sport made by man.

But George is seventy-five, and George has settled down. He likes his routine. I was charging Maria’s laptop the other day, and the single cord crossed the table to the right of George’s chair.

“Vy are zere cables everyvere? I do not like zis.”

I immediately moved the cable.

I tracked straw into the mudroom.

 “Vat is dis?”

“Straw, George. I’ve been cleaning out the stables.”

“Ve alvays vash our boots so ve do not bring in za straw. Okay?”

“Okay, George.”

I ate a lonely piece of salami in the back of the fridge.

“Vere is za salami? Did you eat za salami?”

I dropped a piece of broccoli on the floor while cooking dinner.

“Vat is zat?”

“Broccoli, George.”

“Oh.”

I’ve started walking on eggshells around George. I do everything I can to NOT disrupt his routine.

George recently found out that as an Austrian citizen of over seventy, he is entitled to certain things. Things like free TV, electricity, and telephone services. He sent in his free-stuff application a few months ago, but never heard back. He called the company yesterday, wanting to know “Vere are za sings I am entitled?” and was told that his benefits had been sent to a house in which he’d lived five years prior. The envelope had been returned to sender, with a note that said the previous owner had been dead five years.

“I am not dead,” grumbled George, “and I vant my sings.”

But even though George is very much alive, he keeps on telling Maria to just put him down. He’s even arranged everything with the fellow who’s going to dig his hole.

“It vill cost one hundred and fifty. Usually, it is one hundred. Zis man charges me extra because I am so big.”

George started watching a series called, “Band of Brothers.” I told him that I’d enjoyed watching that series earlier this year with my boyfriend. I told him that my favorite character was Winters.

“Vich one is Vinters?”

“uhh… the fellow with the reddish hair.”

“Oh. “

“You know?”

“No. I haf red/green blindness. You can add zat to my list of character defects.”

“…oh”