View from the North 40: Not all Signs from the Universe are created equally

I don’t acknowledge signs, those supposed metaphysical, philosophical and esoteric Signs from the Universe that require interpretation to guide me through life’s journey.

Those signs are a hard no from me.

Signs from the Universe are pointless for over-thinkers. Let’s say you’re working hard to make a dream come true. Your first break comes along and you garner some success from it, but not without some problems and painful sacrifices. You feel this momentous moment is a sign.

Do you think: A) “I’m on the right track. I just need to work harder”; B) “This is not for me and I need to move on”; or C) “Clearly I’m meant for this, but I need to take a moment to assess my life lessons and come at this from a different angle. Work smarter, not harder, eh?”

That’s a trick question for an over-thinker because the only logical answer is D) All of the above. Over-thinkers can think their way around to all the answers being right — and if they’re all right that means they’re all wrong, too.

Road signs I’m good with. Mile markers, stop signs, speed limit signs, exit 101 next right, 35 miles to the next town with food — they’re all quite clear.

I’m good with some other signs, too. Like if I’m out hiking and see fresh bear scat — this is a clear sign I need to look around and decide if I’m the slowest person in my hiking party. If the answer is yes, I need to seek shelter immediately.

Thanksgiving is coming up. If I have to loosen my belt while I’m at the table, then by all means, yes, it’s a sign I need to put the fork down and move away from my plate. I won’t do it, but later, when I’m in my sweats, lounging in my recliner like a walrus on the rocks, I’ll sound ever so satisfied as I moan and grunt about how full I am.

I said I’m an over-thinker, not a deep-thinker.

I hope, though, my examples above have made my stance clear — because it’s important to understand how obstinately I refuse to assess my world in terms of obscure signs of guidance for my life — before I tell you that I have, in fact, received a Sign from the Universe.

Mice.

I know, regular readers of my column are rolling their eyes and groaning “Aagh, she’s going to go on and on about mice again.”

Fair enough, but I’m here to tell you that in a lifetime of living in the country — 32 years of which I’ve spent in a sketchy, cheap trailer house that has seen its share of mice traffic and the occasional full-scale mouse invasion — never have I ever seen mice like this.

They look like regular house mice, but they are, I don’t know, insane or hopped up on illicit drugs. Perhaps escapees from a science experiment? They aren’t normal.

They don’t follow regular mouse patterns. They are not interested in any bait we have used in our traps. They don’t fall for the usual tricks to funnel them to the traps. They are very vocal squeaky screechers. And they run everywhere. Everywhere, I’m telling you.

And by run, I mean full-on, out-of-control galloping.

All the pipes running the length of our trailer house are in a built-in box along one wall. The mice use it like the back stretch in the Indy 500. When they race along the pipes in that box, I expect to hear the whine of a wrapped-up high-performance engine whipping by, like mmnnnzzzooowww!

You would think they would accidentally run into a trap, or stop for the bait to refuel, but no. We caught nothing.

The last straw for me was last weekend when I was up late working at my desk in the office. Half of the office behind my chair is stacked to the ceiling with boxes because we are working to get the new house done enough to move in while packing up the trailer house a little at a time as we go. I heard a mad scramble at the top of the boxes, a moment’s pause and the thump of a mouse body hitting the floor so hard I felt the reverberation in my feet. Then nothing.

Hopefully he died at the end of that long fall, I thought.

About 10 seconds later, the mouse came careening out from under the table behind me to the right. With speed as a factor, he failed to negotiate the turn, slammed into the heel of my shoe, tumbled up my ankle, performed some crazy parkour maneuver off my lower leg, bounced off the wall and squeaked his way through some mouse-sized access to the pipe speedway. And was gone, thundering east.

We declared war, bought more traps. I even got sticky traps, which I hate because I want to exterminate the mice not torture them. But I am at the no-holds-barred stage of warfare.

Our extreme efforts have netted us nothing.

I wrote a column about it. Called the mice a gang. Accused them of running a meth lab made from the art supplies they’ve chewed up. It was funny stuff.

I deleted it this morning after I got up at 4 a.m. and checked my trap line. I had a mouse in a sticky trap — already dead.

All I’m going to say about the carcass is this: Evidence shows that another mouse found the trapped mouse before I did and that second mouse, the one still at-large in the house, has the appetite of a zombie.

Clearly, the Universe is prompting me to get moved out of the trailer house and burn it to the ground.

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I also understand now why the mice are running everywhere and squeaking — it's panic at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .