Dinner

About a week and a half ago, certain business matters required that I be at the office between 1:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. Stuff happens on the east coast that doesn't recognize the imposition on folks four time zones away. Anyway, I could either be awake at the house and, if necessary, get dressed and race to the office to fax necessary information or answer questions on the phone...or I could simply stay overnight at the office. This is not difficult. There is a kitchen, food, comfy couch for spreading a sleeping bag on, and I had my alarm clock to wake me for the time I needed to be alert.

I prepared a cup of tea, cranked up my computer, read a book after I read e-mails, and--at sleepy time, donned my pjs, fluffed out the sleeping bag, punched up the pillow, and snestled down on the couch ready for sleep. Ahh. After a certain amount of scrunching and turning, I found the right combination of soft spot and support, and, yawning, I settled in for the first half of the night's sleep.

It's often difficult to sleep in a strange place, especially when it's a large room. Unfamiliar creaks signal that the heat has kicked in, a couple of clunking sighs indicate the refrigerator motor has cut off. Outside the wind clicks branches together, lights across the river resolve into reflections on the window of the microwave clock. It's not the small cozy bedroom you're used to...but, hey, it's indoors, it's warm, it's fine.

It was fine until, just beneath my ear, I heard a tiny rustling noise. Nah, outside. Another turn. Dang, another rustly scrabbling. I bolted to a sitting position, heard no further noise, called myself silly names, and turned around so my head was at the other end of the couch. I scooched and shifted, settled down on my pillow, closed my eyes, and damned if it didn't happen again. I realized that I shared the couch with a small guest. Now I'm not fearful of little quadrupeds, but I sure don't like trying to sleep with one channeling from one end of the couch innards to the other!

"OK, little dude, you can have the couch," I conceded, and moved the hassock over to the armchair, set up there, and managed to achieve a slouching doze for about an hour. I heard no further rustlings, saw no evidence of wee sleekit beasties, and when 3:30 came, I packed all my gear in the car and drove back to the house for the remainder of the night.

Two mornings later, in the kitchen just before the start of work, as we were making coffee and tea, chatting about the day to come, the older of the two staff dogs suddenly stomped over to the corner next to the sink. If ever a sled dog was en pointe, it was Tusker. And there scuttling along the base of the cabinet was my couch companion: a little vole. It raced across the room, heading, no doubt, for the safety of the couch.

Jan noted that it was probably time to haul out the traps. After some discussion of names for the interloper, we agreed that it was a bad idea to name something we planned to kill. Then MJ, laughing, suggested we call it Dinner. And it stuck. We laughed our way upstairs to our desks, one ear open for the trap snap announcing Dinner's dispatching.

The first day the trap remained poised and waiting, the cheese radiating fragrance. The next morning, the cheese was gone! No Dinner in the trap. This time Jan wedged a peanut into the trap ensuring our quarry would have to do some substantial prying, resulting in...well, you can figure it out.

It's been a week, now. Several times a day we check the trap line, and each time the tempting morsel is gone, the trap unsprung. We've tried raisins, bits of cheese with peanut butter in addition to the plain cheese and peanuts. Each time the quick, crafty little critter makes off with the bait. Maybe the laugh is on us for having thought we could outwit the vole who managed come in from the Alaskan winter.

Regardless, Dinner has dined quite well this week.