Mouse Trouble

            On Sunday morning I dreamed that I lost my bank card inside of a personal ATM. It must have been personal because it seemed to be in my home and I was at my leisure to open up the machine and dig inside for my card. But the card had gone down into what seemed like an organic orifice like the depths of a vagina or anus and so I kept trying to shove my hand down into the tight passage. I realized even while I was doing it that I couldn’t possibly have really lost my card and that it was still in the place where I keep it, but I kept on trying to fist the hole anyway and woke up with a hard-on. 

            I finished memorizing “Dépressive” by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords online but no one has posted them and so I started working them out myself. I had the first one before my time was up. I also still have to rework my translation of the last verse. 

            I got sleepy early again and took a siesta at 12:30. 

            I had saltines and old cheddar for lunch. The weather pattern for the last few weeks seems to be that when we have a little storm its usually in the early morning and it’s always cleared up enough in the afternoon for me to take a bike ride. I rode to Ossington and Bloor. 

            I re-read two thirds of “The Critic As Artist” by Oscar Wilde. 

            Yesterday I started thawing out the last carton of liquid eggs that I got last year from the food bank. This evening I put the contents in a casserole dish and baked it, stirring it from time to time. In the last fifteen minutes I put cheddar cheese on top. I had half of it with naan while watching Andy Griffith. 

            In this story the Mayberry town council want to find a way to get outsiders interested in their annual founders day celebration. Andy gets the idea to go out to the highway on the morning of the event and stop the first motorist from out of town to make them an honourary guest for the day. Unfortunately the person they stop turns out to be an expert thief and pickpocket named Sheldon Davis. After Andy’s watch goes missing he finds out that Davis has just been kicked out of the next county. Barney gets the idea that he can talk Davis straight but in trying to do so he reveals that he has in his possession as deputy the keys to every store in Mayberry. Davis lifts the set from Barney’s pocket and proceeds to rob the jewellery store. Andy is waiting to arrest him on his way out. 

            I noticed a mouse come out from behind the couch. It saw me and ran back. The other night I thought I saw another, or perhaps the same rodent dash from the top of the stove to underneath the big element. I turned it on to smoke it out but if it was a mouse perhaps it had found a cooler spot above the oven. If it’s the same mouse then maybe when I had the oven on tonight it came out and escaped to the living room. 

            I hadn’t finished dinner when this show was over so I watched another. 

            In this story a travelling salesman named Bert who is a Mayberry resident comes home. He has complaints about his feet from walking and bursitis from carrying his suitcase. He’s also not very pushy and so his friends have to push him just to get him to sell something. People are coming up to Bert on the street where he’s talking with Andy and buying things out of his suitcase. But the local Scrooge Ben Weaver doesn’t want Bert selling on the street and says a legitimate business needs a roof. So Andy gets Bert an umbrella. But Ben says there has to be a structure. So Andy builds Bert a stand. Ben lowers his prices to put Bert out of business. Andy borrows a truck from a store owner in Raleigh named Stevens to move Bert out but when Ben sees it he thinks Stevens and Bert are going in business together. So Ben offers Bert a job at his store to stop the competition.

             One of Bert’s customers was played by Sara Seegar, who played many supporting roles in television and film. She also worked on the London stage and Broadway. She played Mrs Wilson in one season of Dennis the Menace. 

             Another customer was played by Mary Lansing, who held the record for the most characters played on the Andy Griffith Show, She met and married Frank Nelson while acting together in radio. He was famous for playing very unhelpful customer service people on Jack Benny and for his catchphrase, “Yeeeeeees?” Mary was also an architect who designed her own home.