Have you ever seen such a sight in your life?

I haven’t blogged in several months now, mostly because I only write when something really interesting happens. I’ve been so absorbed by school that nothing has struck me as intriguing enough to actually put my mind to work on anything else. Now that school is over, the fates have sent me something interesting about which to blog.

I like my job. I work in the newspaper industry which is particularly interesting right now because first—the economy sucks all across the board, and second—newspapers are going through a…how should I say this—a transitional period.

As a result, we’ve had to get creative and ultimately spend less money. This has meant wage freezes, reduction in hours, layoffs, leaky ceilings, combination of departments so that we can turn the lights off in half of the building, really slow computers, 1 ply toilet paper, outsourcing, outsourcing and more outsourcing. (Oh, and newsflash to whoever the whiny Micron workers were—we’ve NEVER had company provided Kleenex.) All of this, I’ve tolerated with a good attitude because, well, I still have a job.

Oh, also, it is really cold in our building. I don’t think this has anything to do with the economy—I think this is just how “The Man” keeps us alert. The constant cold breeze flowing by my desk has taught me to keep a hearty supply of sweaters at my desk.

One such sweater sits inside a drawer in my desk. It is lovely and soft and blue and I keep it folded in my desk drawer because that is the best place for it. I haven’t worn this sweater in a month or so because I have others and I like to rotate. (Don’t lose interest yet—I’m telling you this for a reason.)

I opened up my desk drawer this morning and noticed that there was a little unraveled piece of blue string Upon further examination, I found LOTS of unraveled fuzzy blue strings all over the sweater. I proceeded to notice little tiny pieces of brown…something. I haven’t touched the brown things, I haven’t run scientific examinations on them, nor do I plan to, and I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got mice in my desk.

Here’s the fun part. I talked to our maintenance department about this problem and they assured me that they would be calling the exterminator and ordering another (I guess this isn’t a new problem) mousetrap…to be put IN MY DESK! Huh. A mousetrap in my desk. How lovely.
Craig and I had a mouse in our house one time. It scared the *$*# out of me. We caught it in a trap which was horrifying. It was so horrifying in fact, that I bought two cats in order to prevent mouse encounters from EVER happening again.

I am frankly dreading the day that I come into work, open up my desk drawer and find a decapitated mouse corpse in my desk. This doesn’t appeal to me. On the upside—I’ve been trying to find an excuse to bring Otto—my kitten—to work, maybe now they’ll let me.