A SCENTUAL TALE

Well you will never guess, not in a million years, what we came cross a while back. We being my friend Karrie and myself. She stopped by, with a couple of those monster travel mugs filled with steamy coffee, for a Sunday morning gabfest. This is a rare and much appreciated event. She mentions she's been having trouble sleeping, and I offered her a Sobakawa pillow; I'd bought a dozen and had a few to spare.

So, they were stashed behind the pie-shaped loveseat. In the corner of my room. Sealed in plastic bags. Thank goodness. We pull one out, and she starts sniffing it. Not that it took any special talent or sensitivity to notice. In fact, it would take a rare talent NOT to observe the scent that emanated in a most profuse manner.... from the plastic bag.

It touched her jeans, her jeans reeked. Her hands. My hands. My comforter. The fan picked it up, and wafted it about. My nose touched the plastic, now it lingered there. "Pee?" she pondered. Hmmmm... "The cat?" I mused... "Heavens no, I would know if it were a cat..." She is a critter person. "So familiar, I just can't place it" She is intent on solving this scentual puzzle. "Fox?" Some male spray...? no male I know has stood on the couch & done his business!

We tick through the whole gamut... not doggish, and anyhow this is not an area accessable to dogs. Nor rodential. YAY for that! "Sheep?" (me) "Goats?" (her) "Camel?" (me) It smells almost like very cheap incense. Sort of musky. We ponder it back and forth, it is almost growing on us. Well, literally, it has covered us both, this most peculiar and haunting odour, by this time.

I have hauled a second pillow out, & it too is smelly. Every inch of both of them, not some spotty little spray. It is thoroughly imbedded throughout the plastic. Some polyvinylchloride gone awry? I am embarrassed; a stinky gift... but she is a farm gal, and shrugs it off. "Not so bad" she assures, "I have smelt MUCH worse"... and I agree, it is musky. Not Jovan White Musky... nope. Primally animal musky.

She leaves a bit later, pillow in hand, promising to air it out when she gets home. I toss the other back behind the couch, it is the best place for it, for now. I wash my hands. And my nose. I change the shift I was wearing. I am not about to change my comforter, tis on the far side of the bed.. I spray it with orange oil, the fan still plays games spinning molecules through the air. And then CLICK, it all makes sense.

I grab the phone & dial her cell, she can't be but a mile down the road. "The ERMINE" I exclaim! She laughs... "I was just thinking.. MINK?" (Her dad raised mink, and foxes as well, how strange is that?) We laugh together... YES!!!

Last year, between cats, we were overrun with rodents. Mice, voles, and probably rats as well. Late one night I got up to pee & settled in to watch a troupe de meese cavorting & frolicking in and out of the shower, vinyl curtains parted for perpetual encores of mousecrobatics. They gleefully celebrated having outsmarted my poisons, assorted traps, and various spells & curses. Seriously, somersaulting whilst thumbing their noses at me.

That this scenario had become the norm was the last straw. I threw my hands up in utter defeat. "I give up GOD, these are your creatures, and I trust you to handle this in your own wise way... just please do SOMETHING!" Then I trooped back to bed, relieved to have handed my rodent burden over to a higher power.

Within two days a most magical creature presented itself, a midnight cavort so enchanting twas as if transported from a beloved fairytale. Fur whiter than snow, black tipped tail fit for royalty, inquisitive eyes that probed my own as if to say, "worry not m'dear, tis a piece of cake." Within a week the house was as quiet as, well, no mice.

We saw him several times over the course of that surreal week, & then he vanished. The ermine hole is right there, in the corner, behind the pillows. Of course, he made sure all the other critters knew it! Indeedy. "They" have been absent since, & the new kitty is added insurance.

Karrie suggested she bring the bag back & we stuff pieces of it into the remaining mouse holes... better to be safe than sorry. Ha ha ha... Yeppers, tis a very musky scent. It is almost pleasant, almost perfumey. In small doses. Almost...