I thought I heard a clink in the wee hours, but I’m a vivid sleeper, so I ignored it.

When the clock went off, I did what I always do and went in the kitchen and set the timer on the stove for an hour and went back to bed. Then when it went off, I went back in the kitchen to set it for 20 more minutes.

The dishtowels were on the kitchen floor.

They did not get there by themselves, and the dog can’t reach them.

Besides, I knew where she was the whole time.

There was also some black foam on the floor in front of the dishwasher, which I suspect is the foam that keeps the dishwasher from making a bunch of noise.

About six weeks ago, I had a spate of animals invading my home and I was catching one mouse after another on glue traps.

Glue traps, if you don’t know, are a gruesome business. They don’t kill the animals, they merely detain them, where they can whine and flop around the kitchen for the rest of the night, keeping you awake. Because you always catch them at about 4 in the morning.

You don’t want to just leave them there suffering, you want to put them out of their misery in a hurry.

What I do is get the whole thing up in a plastic grocery bag and take it outside, where I put it under the back left tire of my car and run over it, and hope that the neighbors don’t see me out there in my big t-shirt and flipflops, pronouncing, “Another of God’s creatures, no more,” as I throw it into the brush.

I was starting to feel a little crazed about the whole thing – like I was one step away from sitting up all night with a BB gun, wearing night vision goggles, just waiting to shoot the furry little bastards, but I got a few cans of Great Stuff and plugged the three holes I found, and then my friend Pete came over and helped me trim it and cover it all with metal tape. I haven’t had any problems since then. 

Until the neighbors got a dog they leave tied outside and throw food to, plus they set their garbage outside under their carport in plastic bags until garbage day.

Now I seem to have another one who is coming in somewhere, and I have just flat given up and called an extraction and exclusion company to come out Monday morning to find any holes that might have appeared since the last time I had it done, before the new roof and before the AC got struck by lightning and I had to have that replaced.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t know that “extracting and excluding” was even a job.

They offer, of course, to do it humanely, but I don’t want them catching and releasing them five miles from here. I want them killing them and taking them somewhere else where I can’t see them.

In other house news, I came home last Thursday and there was a peculiar odor, and it seems the little window unit I had upstairs, where there isn’t central heat and air, was struck by lightning and the capacitator (whatever that is) blew, and took a few things with it. The house still stinks, because for years now, I’ve been thinking, “I ought to get screens for the windows. I wonder where you get screens.”

Now, by God, I know, and Monday morning, early, they’re being delivered and installed.

Two of the other things that blew were the cable and internet, and I was out until Sunday evening. Which was exactly, to me, like living on the plains during the Dust Bowl. I was practically writing notes with charcoal on a shovel blade. I wore my linsey-woolsey dress and everything.

AT&T was good enough to Fed-Ex me a new router and all, but the problem was outside, which I tried to tell them, so they still had to send a person the next day.

The alarm system also went berserk and the alarm man had to come on Monday to take down the thing on the bathroom ceiling that had been making a sound like loud dripping water since Thursday. Although they had never heard of such a thing.

All this did cause me to buy a brand, spanking-new smoke detector which will light my way to leave the house and actually tells me THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE. GET OUT OF THE HOUSE.

But before all that, I went to get my oil changed, and changed cars instead. It was just a better deal and now I have a stickshift again, so I guess it all sort of works out, except I’m scared shitless that a mouse is going to eat my dog before Monday morning.

If there’s anything else wrong at my house, I just can’t know it.