As if you haven’t already noticed, dear reader, the mice have finally let loose the hounds and revolted. Stormed the castle, as it were.
We will dive – here – momentarily, into the ongoing shallow debate that is electrifying grammarians everywhere: is it “meece” or “mices” or “more mice” (which leads us to Well, is it “Micerer” or possibly “Micerest”) (but then we are reminded that Mice is already two mouses and we are somewhat clarified momentarily)
Alas, long time readers will recognize this clarification as a mirage: it is not real and it will not last.
Let us give you a brief run-down on how this all began.
We were born – here in the PB&Jroom - approximately 633 miles apart, or roughly a nine hour drive depending on your interpretation of “speed” and “limits.” Some stuff happened, we got somewhat bigger and a little brighter and then we met.
After we met we let our pooters
• (native term for the abominable creature colloquially known as the Computer, the CPU, the Soon-to-Need-to-be-Upgraded Mclinux (sold right next to the all new McSalsaBurrito and the McSueyChopSoup) alternative which only a technogeek can love no matter what Wallyworld thinks, the Pock (almost anagram for Piece O’Crap) in the Corner, the ugly red-headed stepchild)
• (we know not of what we speak)
play together in the same room, even though we were warned and even though we had been told that allowing them the freedom to plot against us while we slept was most likely dangerous if not certainly potentially fatal, and moreover
• (we cannot right now rightly recall who exactly issued this foreboding but we are sure that the source of said warning is most likely as paranoid if not more so than we ourselves are)
• (PforP #1) you may not get to touch the Master but you can tickle His creatures),
we left them to their own devices.
Said devices including (but not limited to):
1. extraneous hard drives,
2. dongles,
3. dongle receptacles,
4. printers,
5. keyboards,
6. monitors,
7. docking stations,
8. cooling pads,
9. infrared sensors,
10. alarums,
11. bells,
12. whistles,
13. spiffy Chuck Taylors,
14. cords,
15. plugs,
16. back-up cords,
17. back-up plugs,
18. back-up extraneous hard drives,
19. gel pads,
20. pet alpacas,
21. wind chimes,
22. Tibetan monks,
23. this really cool Marvin the Martian Acme K-11 Rehygromenator PaperClip De-atomizer not to mention the rather neato-squeato Daffy Duck Acme K-T86 Hyregromenating RubberBand Re-Atomizer,
24. Gumby dammit!,
25. Pokey bent in an impossibly awkward potentially fatal position
26. and, finally, mice.
So, since you are wondering, dear reader, here is what occurs, the way we see it: our pooters are triggered by the flick of the light switch, their clear indication that the room is about to go dormant for the evening; they are equipped with a time-delay device that ensures that their activity occurs only when the room is clear of their pets (us, dear readers, us!).
(Think about it: while yes, the television device has enslaved a fairly terrible amount of peeps, at least you can change the channel on the cotton-pickin’ thing if you can find the remote and if the batteries are good and if the satellite is lined up just so with Neptune’s Isocoletic position in the southwestern portion of the northeastern sky; on the other hadn, with any given pooter on any given day you only have these rather simple-minded manipulative control devices: you have a keyboard and if you are lucky, a wireless mouse. Other than these two now completely archaically ancient technologies (think: steam engine-era control devices), you have barely a wing and if you are lucky maybe a prayer. You can hardly dictate what goes out of your pooter and cannot at all control what gets into your pooter. You can only hope to be given the opportunity to neuter your pooter before the infiltration spreads, lopping off a portion of the hard drive to save the integrity of the motherboard. The center gets itself broken, it cannot hold, and the spire goes vortexing out into the stratosphere, looking for newly minted non-spayed pooters to infest.)
Which does not actually touch too much on the theory that we (and this we includes you, dear reader) are beholden and behest to the mice (meeces) running sidecar with our pooters. The way we see it, mice need only a few creature comforts –
• to be stroked,
• to be handled,
• to be scrolled,
• to be shaken,
• to be hammered against the nearest hard object repeatedly and rhythmically as though the mice will chop down the cherry tree if it is not stopped,
• to be massaged,
• to be the object of great indecisiveness,
• to click the Maximize when the Close is the intended object,
• to click the Close when the Minimize is the intended object and the document/spreadsheet/hours-long project is not saved,
• and to have its tires or batteries rotated every so often.
Given these few creature comforts, it is our reckoning that our mice (meeces) have us almost right where they want us, as we do, religiously, all of the above and will – if the stars are lined up just so – even throw the cotton-pickin’ booger-eatin’ device against the first available wall that springs up in our mice-infested, bull mad red eyes’ line of vision. And we throw in the throw as an added bonus to the mice’s expected comforts, not necessarily as a necessity.
O, how we do strive to please, dear reader, o, how we do.
Which might as well be a question (how we do?) (we do fine, thankee) as far as our meece are concerned.
Here is what has proscribed this latest diatribe: an ugly confluence of FreeCell, SpyWare, short battery life, low battery threshold, and what seems to be an overwhelming desire on our meeces’ part to go to work for the enlightened fruity-smelling line of pooters. Which, said enlightened fruity-smelling line of pooters, we (PB&Jroomers) have promised to inter ourselves in, when the time is right, that right time being when our Windows-sodden beasts finally breathe their last unexpected update and their 4.5 lbs of plastic and metal become junk food for the antiquarians out there who work with antique artifacts of a time long gone (and this at the ripe old age of two or so) (which, according to the soft-cotton-pickin’-ware company which determines when the right time to upgrade should be for the hard-booger-eatin’-ware companies (who, it should be added, sycophantly Benjamin Dover themselves hourly to the darned software company when indeed it should – if the laws of physics worked out right and Moore’s law was adhered to, properly – be so much so the other way around), is about right for keeping the wheels of consumerism clicking).
So it is the “right time” thingamajig that is throwing the meece off their game, as, it has been noticed, the meece and their pets have a different idea of what constitutes pooter death therefore resulting in “the right time.”
Here is what our meece do seem to know:
• we (PB&Jroomers) are mightily frustrated with our meece performance;
• said frustration has lead to more hammering and meece-tossing of late than afore;
• we are saying “oh, dear” and “dang” and “drats” with much more frequency than saying things like, for instance, “excellent” and “yay!” and “yippee!” when it comes to analyzing our pooters’ recent performances;
• current pooters’ performance will lead to a new fruity-smelling pooter with which to perform sooner rather than the hoped-for later;
• we are tired of losing at Tetris and FreeCell due to erratic meece behaviour.
By the way, what next: lorries? hoovers? kerbs?
Here is what our meece do not seem to be aware of:
• we will hunt them down and replace them in the blink of a bull mad red eye if they continue this non-performative performance;
• we have already considered, evaluated and prepared potential replacement meece for the much anticipated current meece failure;
• when we do get shiny new fruity smelling pooters, we will eventually want shiny new fruity-smelling meece to accompany our pooters wherever they may roam over their promised-to-be interminably long lifetime;
• we adhere faithfully as would a chemically enhanced adhesive product to the Proverbs for Paranoids;
• PforP #3) if they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.
We love our former selves with the devotion rightfully reserved for humanity but an errant, misguided meece does not deserve the same accommodation. No trip to Fruity-Smelling Land, no parade down Integrated Function Avenue, no casual hand-in-hand stroll around Wireless Connectivity Park for these meece, no; nothing but the indignity of the masking tape price tag at the next Please Buy Our Unwanted Crap Sale (aka, the ubiquitous garage sale) with a marked through $1 writ in purple marker, highlighting a red “1/2 off” in the corner, somewhere on the back left corner of the clapboard table featuring other Really Unwanted Crap such as phone cords that is positioned in front of the melamine covered patio table that features Not As Unwanted Crap such as sweaters and caps.
That is the ultimate dread of implacably obdurate meece.
Personal density is inexorably correlative to one’s temporal bandwidth just as meece stubbornness is directly proportional to its possible future as decorative wall art if it is not purchased during the waning Pretty Much Everything Is Free moments of the Please Buy Our Unwanted Crap Sale.
Good meece should take heed.
Now. Where were we? Oh, yes, it is 1982 and we have closed the gap to 80 miles or so, depending on personal preferences regarding the niceties of the MS state troopers patrolling I-55 rather than the tingle of excitement that comes from waking a trooper on highway 78, or roughly an hour and a half apart unless some of 78’s hills are taken with both axles off the road.
Then you might get there faster.
Or you might never arrive, depending on how well you stick the landing.
This is, of course, the ephemeral “you” we reference.
O, kudzu, kudzu, how once we longed for you.
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