Last night I found myself sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of the cabin
that C and I will inhabit for five short weeks this summer. I was listening to the rain pound down on
the earth and the thunder rumble over these evergreen hills.
The cabin is named Sebasticook (Si – bass – ti – cook),
after a river, but lovingly referred to as “Sea-bass” on camp. It’s notorious for having a fairly
overwhelming mouse problem, but considering that we spent last summer in a
camper trailer in a corner of the staff parking lot, this is really
not
so
bad.
Each morning this summer, I plan to joyfully flush the toilet,
knowing that later in the day I won’t have to hold my breath and pull the white
lever underneath the camper to empty the black-water tank into an outhouse pit. I’ll be flushing like a free man. Like a free man who's actually a
woman.
Another positive note with regards to our living situation
is that we have a cat. A cat who,
you’ll be happy to know, is gradually building more experience as a mercenary. So far she hasn’t actually eaten the mice after conducting her hours
of catch and release, but I’m pretty sure the day is looming ahead of us
somewhere. It’s
probably tomorrow, or worse yet, tonight.
And mice aren’t all that we find in our cabin.
Two nights ago, I returned from a long day downriver (*ahem*, downrivah) to a miraculous camp dinner
(Salmon? For dinner? It’s not canned?!) and a chance to
visit with some fellow camp staff.
Sometime after that, I walked back to my cabin with an armload of
things, only to open our door and find a woman lying on our bed.
Cue the twenty-something girl dropping her armload of stuff.
Do you want to know what was the most distressing? It wasn’t her dreadful midriff-bearing polyester
tracksuit or her blank stare. It
wasn’t her frozen facial expression, battleship chest cavity, or even her nylon
blonde bob.
It was that she was sprawled on our bed with her white, circa-1990
Keds® still on.
The cat seemed ok with it.
Tactless. I
wasn’t about to give her a rescue breath after that.
A few friends of ours (some of whom happen to be CPR
instructors and run our waterfront, while the others direct our tripping
program – you know, the responsible
adults at camp) thought that the air mattress we are sleeping on was made for
not two, but three, and added their
Suzy-sucks-wind to the mix on our behalf.
I promptly threw her lifeless body over my shoulder, with
her keester pointed toward the oncoming traffic (as is the only way) and marched back to where I knew I
would find the culprits.
And they laughed.
And I laughed. And Suzy
laughed.
As I sit here on the porch watching the thundershower pass,
I know that it’s been a pretty good summer so far: the mouse-riddled, black
fly-bitten, CPR-dummy-in-your-bed kind of good,
which is to really say,
great.
