Relationships

I have come to realize that every couple in the world has some relationship issues that normally play themselves out in a rehearsed dialogue.

We all fight over stupid stuff and all quickly learn each other's "buttons" to push at frequent intervals. Even the most "in-love" couples in the world seem to engage in this activity and it seems so very awful when it is happening...but I think it just might be normal.

Scott and I will always have "the Midwest."

We met and fell in love with each other under the most difficult of circumstances. He was in the middle of a divorce and I was in the middle of convincing myself that I would never meet anyone who was right for me.

Somehow, that didn't seem to stop either one of us from falling for each other.

There were worlds between us.

Because it would have been far too simple for me to decide I couldn't love him because he was getting divorced, has two children, and a job that put him on a constant roll-call to be deployed to places such as Afghanistan and Iraq at a moment's notice...I decided to focus on something else.

"Did you just say 'shucks?'" I asked.

"Yeah, I did, sorry." Scott said.

"OK, tell me again what you are planning this weekend?" I ask.

"Me and Sean (his son) are building a shed for homeless kids in the garage as part of his Boy Scouts project," he reports.

"Are you planning to put in some device that will alert you if a gay Scout crosses the threshold?" "Can you figure out if a Scout is gay because he holds his pinky out while making a slip-knot?"I laugh.

"That is not funny, Patti. Why are you so critical of me?"

I am just kidding, I promise, realizing that I have said something wrong.

"Why do you hate the Midwest so much? I feel like you are constantly criticizing me about something I cannot control."

Scott's from Iowa and I am from Philly via Connecticut. I have a bizarre East-coast sense of humor on some things and he does not.

"I don't hate the Midwest, Scott, I promise."

"Your family is a wreck. You all drink, talk, and fight too much. Everyone is fucked up...but, oddly, very honest," he relates.

"I hate Iowa!" I tell him.

"You don't know Iowa from a hole in your ass...but thanks for the opinion."

"I have been to Minnesota!" I cry.

"Yeah, OK. I am dragging your butt on a long drive on I-29 so we can stop this silliness once and for all" he tells me.

"I won't go!" I tell him.

"Oh yes, you most certainly will!" he fires back.

We slam down the phone.

Then we spend the next 48 hours fighting with each other until we come across a solution.

We want to see each other so badly but that seems to be impossible these days with me living in Uganda and him living in Kansas.

I am in South Africa and have surfed the net for any possible ways for us to meet each other...even though we are in the middle of a horrible fight...and I find cheap airfare to Paris.

I send him the details with a note telling him I cannot speak French.

The next morning, I awake to find that he is going to be in France in six weeks time.

This is a man who always takes me up on my "maybes," no matter how much I crticize him for being too conservative and being from the Midwest.

"I don't speak French either, but I will be there at the airport in six weeks. I love you...you incredible pain in the ass!" he tells me.

I buy my tickets too.

"See you there in six weeks, leave Kansas behind!" I say.

All the time I am thinking...what if he says "shucks" in Paris?

But knowing it doesn't really matter in the least.

Of Mice and Men (Part One)

It all started about six weeks ago, on one blisteringly hot Sunday morning in mid-December.

I had gone out with a few friends the night before and had indulged in one too many Bell beers and was definitely feeling it on that particular morning.

As I stood at my kitchen counter, making myself a cup of tea and chugging back some orange juice, something skittered from underneath my dishwasher, over my bare foot, and behind the refrigerator.

I had a delayed reaction time but when what had just occurred made it to my brain, I completely freaked out.

I ran out of the kitchen and got fully dressed (like you do when confronted with something living underneath your appliances) and got on top of a chair in my living room, heart pounding....

"What the FUCK was that?" I asked.

I happened to be on Skype with Scott at the time and told him what had happened...

"I think it was a scorpion...maybe a Monitor Lizard...maybe something worse...but I cannot go back into my kitchen...what should I do?"

"You didn't see it? You have no idea what it looks like?" Scott asked.

"No...but I am sure it is poisonous and God-only-knows what it might be!!! This is Africa, after all!!!"

"It's probably just a mouse, Patti, calm down. YOU who worked in the veterinary field for so long flipping out like this! It is probably just a simple mouse, nothing that can hurt you." he chuckled.

NO! I insisted. It is something much more awful than a mouse...it is something else. I can never go back into my kitchen again!!!

That night, returning to my kitchen in desperation for a glass of water, the monster skittered over my foot again...this time running blindly from underneath the refrigerator to get under the stove...leaving a trail of shit in its wake.

I once again panicked but not before having a look at the monster...and yeah, OK, it looked like a mouse. But still...who could be sure?

So the next day, Monday, I dragged Robert upstairs into my kitchen as we were hauling up groceries. I made him go through the door first.

"There is something that is living in my kitchen, Robert," I told him solemnly. "I am not sure what it is but I am afraid to go in there by myself."

Robert, who considers himself my protector as well as my driver, was immediately worried.

"Is it a snake?" he asked.

No, definitely not a snake.

"A scorpion, maybe? Those can make you very sick if they bite you!" he pressed.

No, I don't think so...but maybe.

Then he looked at me and said, "It's not a mouse, right?"

I don't know what it is! Just go in there and tell me...I've got your back in case it's dangerous!

So he went inside and I followed. We were unpacking the groceries when all of a sudden, out from behind the dishwasher, comes this big, ugly mouse who makes a b-line for my foot.

I scream, drop what I am carrying, and climb on top of the foot stool in the foyer.

Robert doubles over in pure hysteria.

"Madame Boss! You are so very funny! That is a mouse, not a scorpion! It won't hurt you! HAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Seeing that I was still on the stool, he decided to explain to me what a mouse was...figuring I had never seen one before and that MUST be the reason I was acting so strangely.

About half-way through his talk, I interrupted him.

"Robert, we have mice in the US as well...I know what a fucking mouse is....I just don't like the fact that this one lives in my kitchen and keeps running over my feet...it scares me because I am not expecting it. That's all....I am not afraid of mice!"

He keeps laughing...

"You! Afraid of mice...wait until I tell my wife! This is so funny!" he continues, tears running from the corner of his eyes.

Finally, realizing that I am serious, he gets up.

"OK, then we shall kill it. I will get a trap and some poison and we will kill it tomorrow, no problem," he says.

"I don't want to kill it, Robert, I just want to trap it and take it out of my apartment." I tell him.

He looks at me, as he often does, like I have just fallen off of the moon.

"What do you mean you don't want to kill it? You HAVE to kill it!" at this he forks his finger in the direction of my Buddha statue in the living room. "Does this man tell you not to kill the mouse?" he asks.

I just don't like killing animals, I explain, so let's find some way to get rid of this thing humanely, OK?

"But you eat meat," he points out.

Fair enough. But I don't want to poison the mouse if I don't have to...let's try other ways...

So, over the next month, I spend about $150 on every sort of humane trap available. This mouse becomes an obsession for me and Robert.

He drops me off at the office and comes back to check on the mouse. We spend hours at the supermarket trying to figure out the most tempting food to lure the mouse into the cage we have bought. He asks his relatives if they have any herbs to lure a mouse into a cage without killing it, we name the mouse, Robert examines its shit everyday to let me know that the mouse is healthy...this mouse becomes our lives.

That is, until it ate my cigarettes.

I have been trying to quite smoking since I came back to Uganda last month and I carefully ration out my cigarettes every day so I don't get tempted to smoke too much. I had gotten myself down to three a day as of last week.

So, last Tuesday I left, as I was in the habit of doing, my three daily allotted cigarettes on the counter when I went to bed the night before.

The mouse had not made another appearance in two weeks so I had basically forgotten about it and resumed my lifestyle...even though Robert was still obsessed.

Until that morning...

I woke up and went into my kitchen to make myself some tea and came face-to-face with the mouse...sitting on my counter polishing off the last of the cigarettes I had put out for myself the night before.

I screamed and rushed...while he (or she), with a filter hanging out of its mouth, dove...

...off the counter and back underneath the dishwasher.

I called Robert immediately...it was 6AM.

"I want to kill the mouse now, Robert, right NOW!" "How can we kill it TODAY?"

Robert was relieved.

"Can I bring the poison then, please? Also, the trap that is not so, ummm, friendly to them?" he asked.

"YES...bring it ALL...let's kill this beast!!!"

That afternoon, we poisoned my entire kitchen. I cleared all of my food and sundry items out and we both donned surgical masks as Robert laid poison underneath every counter and appliance.

He even, to my surprise, asked for "the spray."

"The Spray" is the mosquito anti-repellent that I had asked Scott to buy for me at the PX before I left for Africa. It is Army-strong and probably about 90% pure DEET and other horrific nerve agents. I had used it once and my skin started burning so badly that it took three showers to get the shit off of me. Granted, I used it once a month to spray my screens and I have NEVER seen a mosquito in my entire time in Uganda but this is scary stuff...

Ugandans are convinced that DEET kills children (and, rightfully so, in this form) so I was shocked to hear Robert ask for the very thing that he would walk miles around to avoid even seeing whenever he was visiting.

So, on top of the poison, we sprayed this awful DEET on everything in the kitchen to the point that both of us were coughing and gagging when it was finished.

That night, I sat in my apartment and watched four very fucked-up mice stagger towards the open screen door from underneath my counters. Next-door, my neighbors were watching mice stream out from underneath their counters to join my parade of poisoned monsters who all, unceremoniously, dropped dead on our shared landing.

"What is that spray??!!" they asked. "How do we get some?!"

I felt my karma taking a nose-dive and explained to everyone that would listen that I really didn't mean to kill all of these mice...I had no idea that it would work out this way....

Still...the mice were gone.

Or so I thought.

As I was packing to go to South Africa for a week last Thursday, I happened into my kitchen to grab a soda when something scooted out from behind the dishwasher, over my foot, and back under the refrigerator.

I got a good look at it and realized it was the same mouse...

How do I know? This mouse has no toes on its back left foot...and, Goddamn-it, it was the same mouse.

I called Robert.

"The mouse is back," I told him solemnly. "What do we do now?"

He was stunned. After all of that poison and chemicals ("the SPRAY" even?!!) and the mouse is back?

Yep, I confirmed.

"Well, we need a medicine man," he advised. "If you can give me $12.50, I can bring my uncle in from the village and he will say some chants and give you some herbs to kill the mouse..."

What the fuck? I thought. I have come this far...but why $12.50? The $.50 seemed like an odd number...

"Oh, he will also say a prayer to make you fertile at the same time...you are getting too old to have babies," Robert said.

Great.

A dead mouse and a fertility treatment at the same time...only in Africa.