Not much time to blog today. I've got maybe 50 minutes, which isn't a lot for me. As S likes to point out to me quite often, I'm slow. I'll usually do a good job with things but almost never quickly. But today time is of the essence, so I'm just going fire off the first things that come to mind.
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Lil' S1 went to "Indianapolis" for a night on Friday with a friend. I use quotes because he actually went to Annapolis, but when he asked us about it, he said "Indianapolis." We were really confused -- for several days, not just like a few minutes -- as to why his friends' family were going to Indianapolis for a single night. It's at least a nine-hour drive from DC. Were they flying there? And isn't that the type of thing the parents should contact us about? That's a big trip to have kids work out on their own, no? So, S texted the friend's mom, and she informed us it was Annapolis, as in the city that's under a 45-minute drive from where we live. Yes, that makes a lot more sense.
The thing is, Lil' S1's geography is so bad that there isn't a meaningful difference to him between Annapolis and Indianapolis. They're just phonemes and as phonemes they're objective easy to confuse. If you're familiar with where they are on the map, then you're highly unlikely to confuse them. But Lil' S1 isn't familiar with where they are on the map. In fact, if I asked him right now, I bet he could not tell me what states these cities are in, and one of the states is a short walk from where we live and the name of the other one is literally embedded in the city name.
It's not just him either. I don't think his friends know this stuff either. It seems like it isn't something that's taught in school anymore. Maybe it never was. I've known every state and where it is on the map and its capital and largest city since I was seven, but I memorized it all from an atlas we had at home. I don't remember if we learned that in school or not. We should have though, and kids should learn it today. I think stuff like this is sometimes considered unimportant memorization work, but I don't think it is. If you don't know where anything is in the country relative to everything else, you just kinda look like a dumbass, and it's a useful life skill to look like a dumbass as seldom as possible.
And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go study a map of the world for no particular reason.
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A few nights ago I was creeped out in a way I haven't been creeped out in a long time. I woke up from a really bad dream, one of those panic inducers, where the premise of the dream is really silly -- in this case I was staying with a bunch of family at a friend's vacation house, but then the friend came with his family and so we had to find a new place to stay -- but the tenor of the dream is extremely unsettling, borderline frightening for some reason. So, I woke up in a bit of a disoriented panic. My mouth was super dry and the water bottle I keep near my bed was empty, so I got up to fill it in the kitchen, still very much discombobulated.
In the kitchen, I heard a startling scratching noise coming from outside in our backyard. It's sounded like concrete being dragged against concrete. My first thought was that somebody was breaking in so I peeked through all the windows* but didn't see anybody. Also, on second thought, it wouldn't make sense that somebody was trying to break in given where the sound was coming from. It wasn't particularly close to a door or a window, and it sounded like it was coming from under the house. I convinced myself that it must be an animal of some sort, which didn't exactly put my mind at ease but was a much less worrisome thought than it being a human trying to rob us, and so after about twenty more minutes of walking around the house making sure everything was locked the alarm was on, I felt comfortable enough to go back to sleep, still more than a little creeped out.
*We have blinds that are one solid piece of fabric, not the kind that are a bunch of individual slats plastic slats. In general, I like our kind of blinds better, but they suck for peeking. You either have to put it all the way up or peek through the side at a bad angle. The individual slats are perfect for peeking, and whenever I hear something outside, I wish we had that kind.
The next morning, I noticed a random black box in the middle of our lawn, and I figured out what happened. A few years ago we had a mouse problem, where we could actually hear mice running around in our walls and our ceiling. It was pretty gross, so we got pest control out here, and they located the point of entry, sealed it up, and also set a bunch of traps. It worked great, and we haven't had any problems with mice since then.
One of the traps is this bait box thing. It's like a box mounted on a slab of stone with poison in it, and then there is a tiny entry where only something the size of a mouse could get in to. So, some animal, I'm guessing a raccoon, because it would be hard to move this thing without grabbing it, was dragging this box out from under our house, and that's what I heard. Presumably, it was attracted to it for the same reason a mouse would be, but it couldn't actually get at the "goods" (which is lucky for it), so it eventually got bored and left.
There we go, mystery solved, no reason to be creeped out anymore. Now I'm just annoyed because I have a bait box in the middle of my lawn, and if I put it under the house, I'm sure it'll just get dragged out again. I guess I'll just push it off to the corner and call it good. I also don't love that it's attracting other vermin, but perhaps that's unavoidable, and, like I said, we haven't had any further problems with mice, so I'll just live with it.
Alright, time's up. Until next time...
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