Rambo V: First Blood Again, But This Time It's a Mouse - A Retro Diary

Let me start off by saying I've lived on my own, in my own apartment before. I lived in dorms for two years at school, but quickly moved off campus as soon as it was allowed (my school required freshman and sophomores to live in dorms, most likely to force people to make friends with people they would quickly wish they hadn't done so with).

For three years I lived on my own, in what can be described as absolute squalor. It was not uncommon for me to say things like "I wonder who dumped out the entire bag of sugar onto the floor last night?" or "Why is there a kitchen knife stuck into the wall?"

I'm just sleepin' bro.

College was fun. But I would never consider those apartments or dorm rooms my "home" (save the time I accidentally signed up my freshman dorm as my billing address for an ATM card, rendering its ability to purchase Microsoft Points on Xbox live useless for many years).

I moved home after college, and this September I moved to Boston. Or, more specifically Allston. Or, even more specifically, Rat City. Before I moved out, I decided that I wanted to live with a (relatively clean) roommate in a nice apartment, where I wouldn't need to worry about walking around on broken glass (#LENNOX) accidentally, or finding old Chinese food sitting under a radiator. I know, I know, lofty goals indeed. Luckily I found that situation, moved out, and went about making it into the best version of my "home" I could muster. Nothing will replace the home I lived in my whole life, but I've done an OK job. I'm comfortable. Or, I was comfortable until FIRST BLOOD was drawn. Sometime in December, I discovered that a mouse had been feasting in my pantry. Here is a brief timeline:

Click to read smaller text.

Last night I bought the equivalent of a mouse sized World War I defense stockpile. I bought a ton of steel wool (barbed wire) to cram into any mouse sized holes. I bought an adhesive foam (bunkers) to make sure the steel wool couldn't be easily pushed out of the holes. I bought a boatload of glue traps (infantry) to target specific areas that he's been known to frequent. Finally, I lined the ONLY entrance to the pantry with a wall of glue traps, stuck to the floor with duct tape (courage). If he wants to wiggle his tiny mouse body under the door of my pantry, he will be charging headlong into machine gun fire.

I will protect my bags of Doritos with my life if need be.

This morning I was prepared to find a writhing, half alive, mouse in one of the many glue traps I had set up over night. This morning? NOTHING. The assault must've been called off. Either that or my new line of barbed wire and bunkers held. Either way, we settle into an uneasy stalemate, similar to the Western Front of 1915. I'm not saying that I'm prepared to use mustard gas on this guy, but a man can only be pushed so far. War is hell.

The little things

I usually get to work at 8, which is about an hour before most people in my office get in. I love it. It's quiet and I can spend an hour either getting real meaningful work done or just dick around on my computer until my daily call at 9. My fantasy football teams are well maintained, albeit largely unsuccessful to say the least. But then again, when you miss click and accidentally draft shonn greene, your season is pretty much doomed from the get go.

The best part about coming in early though, is occasionally I have to poop before anyone has entered the bathroom since the el Salvadorian cleaning crew did their magic the night before. I am filled with immense joy when I walk into the bathroom and the motion sensor light kicks on for the first time. I enter the stall and BAM, the seat is up and super clean. It's the little things that matter.

The Horror, The Horror

After a long, stressful day at work I come home and begin my usual after work ritual. I remove my work clothes, and quickly change into the most comfortable thing I can find (usually some variation on sweatpants/gym shorts and usually the undershirt I wore all day - don't judge). On days when I go to the gym this ritual varies slightly. But generally after I change I plop down, eat dinner, and then spend the next 2-4 hours doing whatever the hell I want (I call this time "Raph Time"...well it sounds cooler in my head... I'll think of a better name for this later, maybe during "Raph Time"?).

So during lasts nights Super Relaxing Free Time (Raph Time still sounds better...), my Mom comes into my room. We're having a normal conversation when she suddenly recoils and blurts out "Oh God honey! What happened to your face?!" She collects herself, and realizes "Oh...sorry, it looks like you've just broken out a little."

Thanks Mom. You really know how to ruin Videogame-TV-Movies-Alone Time (ok that does it, I'm sticking with Raph Time).

Return of the Mack

Awhile back on a Monday morning (7/13 to be precise), I arrive and immediately see that I have several messages on my work answering machine. Apparently people only leave messages for me when I'm not sitting at my desk. It's a shame, because my ring tone is super cool, and I never get to hear it (it's not that cool anyway, whatever).

I fly through the first 3 messages which are mostly internal messages of people asking me ridiculous questions (like if we have any A4 paper WHICH WE OBVIOUSLY DO). Then I get to message number 4 which is "Return of the Mack" (a 90s gangster rap song) playing on someone's radio, obviously muffled through their pants pocket. It lasts for about 2 minutes.

My first reaction is that the voice mail is from my girlfriend. "Return of the Mack" happens to be one of her favorite songs, and it seemed like maybe it was a cute gesture from her: "hope your week goes well, enjoy this 90's jam <3 <3 <3", or something similar. I call the number back, it goes to voicemail.

"Hello you've reached [Raph's Boss] please leave a message...". Yup. My boss listens to 90's gangster rap on the way to work. The best part is when he gets in to work he sort of defensively asks me "Why did you call?". I had to awkwardly point out that I was returning his call....and that all I could hear on the message was "Return of the Mack". We had a good laugh. Then we promised never to speak of it again.

In Moldova, Company Hires You!

I send a lot of FedExes in my line of work. So far I've been fortunate enough to send two packages to Moldova (The Republic of). A funny thing happens when you try to send a FedEx to Moldova: the "Company" field disappears from the online form. This leads me to believe that there are either no companies in Moldova, companies are outlawed in Moldova, or even that possibly Moldova is a company itself (Update: I checked, its a country after all).

Wh4t 4 l33t r3$um3!!1

I just printed out a resume for a potential candidate at work (my boss does a lot of interviews because he's pretty high up in the company) and I loled at his email address. I don't want to use his real name or anything but for the sake of the story, lets say his name is Sean Lee. His email address (in this example) would be: S3an L33. Yup, he used his l33t email address for his professional resume. What a n00b....

...
...
..I hope he gets hired!!1

Farewell Borders

I'm sad that Borders is going out of business. Two "topical" blogs in a row! I wouldn't get used to it oh faithful reader (intentionally singular), I'll be back to spewing pointless nonsense in no time. Also, this isn't really that topical. Borders has been floundering for close to a year now, thanks in large part to Amazon.com and the Kindle/eReader revolution. Today I made my (most likley) last purchases at Borders EVER (for the record: a football book, a book about the history of the Earth, and a book about the Higgs Boson). This is kind of a big deal considering I've spent literally hundreds of dollars on comic books, ahem excuse me, graphic novels, over the past 3-5 years.

I will always fondly remember the time I spent alone there, sitting alongside the manga nerds as they killed time before their foam kendo sword practice sessions. It was one of the few activities I could do at school that was totally and absolutely a solo mission. I didn't have a car at school, which meant going anywhere for lunch or any other activity was always contingent on other people getting their  act together. This proved especially frustrating living in a house with 6 indecisive and usually, to use the technical term, "high as shit" guys. Strolling down to Borders on nice sunny day was a great way to get away from the arguments about kegs and who spilled an entire bag of sugar in the kitchen the night before and forgot to clean it up.

It was totally worth it.

But Borders has also been a source of negative memories. Like the time I overdrew my account buying "The Ultimates 1 : Volume 2"  and had to ask my mom for money. Or the time I witnessed one of the most horrifically comical things I've ever seen. There was an extremely large, fat man in glasses and giant Jorts (Jean Shorts) sitting on the edge of a window sill. He was positioned so that his ass was angled almost up into the air, as his belly popped out of his shirt onto his frumpy paunch. He was reading a comic and talking on the phone at the same time. While on the phone, he began farting. Loudly. Continually. He made no effort whatsoever to conceal it and didn't even for ONE second look around to gauge reactions of the people around him. He didn't even break the conversation he was having on his phone. It's a soothing thought to know that next time he does this, he will be forced to sit in the comfort of his own home and shop on Amazon.com. Either that or find a Barnes and Noble.

Picture him in Jorts.

Farewell Borders :(