NIGHT 6 OF THE GREAT BATTLE OF THE LAUNDRY ROOM.

Many people are sad tonight that the Cardinals lost game one against the San Francisco Giants. We tie our lives up in petty issues to easily. A ball wrapped in cow hide. A bat carved from hard wood. Strapping young men throwing the ball. Other strapping young men trying to hit the ball with the bat. We would like to believe that these are the great wars of our times. But we cannot afford to live lives lost in the luxuries of the niave. There is a great war. It is being played out as I type. It has raged on into this... the sixth night.

The war revolves around my clothes dryer. It would appear to be the bunker for at least one mouse. This mouse is not from Florida. He is from a field. He is not here to make children laugh. He is here to chew through our wires, eat our food scraps, and scare our women. I hear him under the dryer. He is plotting. He is planning. For five nights he has raided my laundry room traps. These are the best traps that money can buy. They have big, tightly wound springs anchored to sanded pine. They sit behind the waste can that holds our rejected lint, behind my gym bag holding its smelly socks, and under the shoe rack. Each evening when I go to bed the traps are fully loaded with only the best Kraft Swiss Cheese. By morning they are empty. And not one trap has been sprung. The score going into tonight is Mouse 6 - Ron 0.

Tonight that all changes. The cheese is molded around the traps trigger. There is no way to remove the cheese tonight withough setting off the trap. The mouse sees the cheese. The cheese calls to the mouse. "It was safe last night. It was safe the night before that. I should be safe tonight too." But it is not safe. It is a highly dangerous, innocent looking, mouse killing, instrument of war.

I plan on winning tonight. In the morning I will get up to find a little mouse head nearly seperated from a little mouse body. At least one. maybe more. There will be sadness in the mouse house tomorrow morning. But there will be joy in my laundry room. My dog will be able to eat his Milky Bones in peace again. My wife can do laundry without fearing her fuzzy faced friend. I will take crime scene photographs. I will draw a chalk outline where his little mouse-body lay. There will be no warriors buriel for my rodent nemesis. There is only a trash dumpster with his name on it.

Tonight is the night. Gosh, I love the smell of swiss cheese in the morning.