Ain't no use.

So. 

My 35th high school reunion came and went last weekend, and I didn't attend. I had decided to go, at one point. It would have been great to see this, that, or another person after all these years. Then it became apparent that, out of a class of 500, maybe 25 people were attending. And these people were not my friends, or even my good buddies.

I am positive that if I had gone, I would have been happily welcomed. These folk had not been overtly hateful to me, back in the day, as dozens of others had been.

But, on the other hand, neither had they been there to comfort me when my mother died. The memory of me weeping uncontrollably in class, during a showing of "Brian's Song," not long after her funeral, still lingers. No person, not even the teacher, thought to offer me tissues. 

I became quite ill during my final semester of senior year with Grave's Disease and I could not continue school. My mother had had thyroid disease, too.

I cannot recall anybody, save for two friends and my high school counselor, who gave a rat's ass about me or tried to help. (After all these years, my memory may be faulty.)

I never graduated high school. I had surgery, a partial thyroidectomy, the summer of '75, and even my older brothers were absent. Where were they?

I left home for good that August, and still I wonder why I keep looking back, wishing and hoping that I missed something.

The Tails of Three Mice

So, it's getting to be fall around here, and the creatures are going about their business of surviving winter. The hummingbirds have flown south, raccoons are staking out territory, I am putting on weight. 

And the outside mice are trying to become inside mice.

The first one I found thanks to Millie, who had it cornered in the linen closet. She flushed it out and took it to the bath tub and released the little thing. It was a baby whose body was no more than an inch long. She caught it again and let it go. Then she pawed it a bit as it struggled to climb the sheer, slick walls. I picked it up by the tail, took it outside, and let it loose.

The second I found in the kitchen sink, about 11 in the evening, and again the porcelain walls prevented escape. For this grown one, I used a dishcloth to pick it up and he, too, went outside.

That's when I finally located the mousetrap, baited it with peanut butter, and went to bed. About 2 am, Foxy and Princess both went nuts and woke me up, so I checked on the trap. It was nowhere to be seen. Damn Millie must have ran off with the entire thing. I looked for her without luck, then went back to bed. 

Up this morning, bright and early, to get Sweetie off to work. Doors open and close, and in comes Millie from the outside. Hmmm. I hear a bell, and notice Reece's on a kitchen chair, and look down under the table. There is the mouse with a trap closed onto its hind foot. 

"You want me to shoot it?" Sweetie asked as I took it outside.  

"No, you don't hang a man twice," I replied as I pried open the spring and watched it scamper away.