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Bottle On The Doorknob

      Hey, everyone. I took a day of vacation today and really enjoyed it. We went out and bought some flowers. Flowers don't do well up here as a rule so we buy some and have a couple of big pots of assorted flowers on the deck for the summer. This year we are going to set the pots out in the yard a bit. The reason for this is the moisture and dirt in the pots seems to attract ants, scorpions and perhaps gnats. Bloody drag, what?
    This weekend there seemed to be a bad odor in the house in the area of the master bedroom and the master bath. We could not isolate what the problem was. We did a number of things, including pouring vinegar and baking soda down the drains, which boils them out in rather spectacular fashion. Put a handful small amount of baking soda down them first, then pour vinegar down them. Very cool.
    We finally deduced that a mouse had crawled up between the floor and sub-floor underneath the jacuzzi, after eating some poison which I had in the crawl space. Normally it totally dehydrates them and they go out in search for water and die in that search. They normally don't stink because they are a husk of their former self. This one may have been a heavy drinker or something because he still packed some stink. I have to respect that, I guess.
     I packed steel wool around the pipes under there at the point where they penetrate the floor. The steel wool will cut a mouse all to pieces if he tries to get through it and this a good idea for those of you who have a problem with mice. How in the heck did I get on this subject?
    Those of you who are new to the blog will be saying to yourself, "Gee, wonder what the title is about?" One of my favorite movies is Conspiracy Theory, starring Mel Gibson in a superb performance. In this movie Mel stars as a guy named Jerry who is a nut with acute paranoia. He is the all-time master of conspiracy theories and publishes a newsletter by that name. I know a guy that is fond of saying this: "Anyone truly paranoid normally has a good reason to be". I don't exactly know what he means but he gets a funny look in his eyes when he says it.
    Jerry has about a dozen door locks, keeps all the food in his refrigerator locked and when he comes home he puts a beer bottle on his doorknob so that if anyone tries the knob the bottle falls. The movie is hilarious until Jerry's newsletter attracts attention from a federal agency and all his subscribers (6) start dying. That's when the object of his romantic obsession ( Julia Roberts ) steps in to help him.  I'm sure that you have seen this movie but if you haven't you should give it a try.
     There were some awesome storms and high winds here this evening. This afternoon there were some small hail stones that fell for a few moments. As I write this, the wind is rocking and rolling in the tree tops around the house and it makes a nice lullaby for a mountain guy. Of course it may not really be the wind. It could be one of those black helicopters planting another dead rat under my floor...
     From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.

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