The beginning battle of WW III was fought last night in my basement. With Lisa being very near her due date, she has problems sleeping and the last thing she needs is me rolling around, snoring, and my alarm going off 15 times before I hit the snooze. So I get relegated to the basement, which I don't mind as it is comfortable and I can watch TV before I fall asleep. Well, last night at precisely 2:11am I was awoken to the sounds of some papers falling off my desk. I didn't think anything of it right away as with the AC sometimes they just get blown off, no big deal. However, when I turned on the light I was startled to find a huge mouse hopping across the floor, scared by the light (no, it wasn't a rat as everyone asks me, and I'm glad for that). He ran into the corner which gave me enough time to go grab a pail to try to trap him in and a broom to swat at him. My initial attempts failed and he ran under the couch. I then scared him behind the entertainment center, which was good since there is only one way out of there and I positioned the pail where he would crawl into there on his way out as I banged on the TV. It worked perfectly, but he tried to jump out once, failed, and the second time as he was jumping out I swung the broom at him and hit him square, throwing him against the wall. He was not to be deterred though and scammed back into our back room, where there was no finding him, but hopefully back there to die. He won the first battle, but I know I'll win the war as there is already an exterminator coming today to get rid of the flies, now he has one more duty. I keep wanting to live in Africa, maybe Africa is coming to me.

What is interesting though is I went upstairs to sleep and of course couldn't as my heart was racing. I began to pray that the little vermin would leave the house and never come back and I hate dealing with these things, plus with Maiya now on the first floor we have less control over her room. In my prayers for Maiya and her safety and our house free from rodents, my mind moved to those living in conditions where they have no control over their environment, no pest control to come and spray their house. I was convicted that I live in such extravagence (at least by the standards of the rest of the world), what if that were taken from me? Would I still be the same person? I want to think so, but I just don't know.

I also gave a good friend of mine totally the wrong directions to Fond du lac yesterday. He called me at 7:50 this morning nowhere near where he was supposed to be for his 8 o'clock class. I feel terrible!