Bulgarian Mice

Bulgarian mouse trap.

So here's a fun story about my life in Bulgaria. One night I had the married couple PCVs over for a bit of watermelon and rakia. Chad looks strangely past me and tells me I have a friend. "Huh?" Chad gets up and walks slowly over to my stove. I turn around. Chad walks back and sits down. "There was a mouse sitting over there."

"Oh, you are KIDDING!!" I said.
"Um, okay, I'm kidding." Chad unconvincingly responded.
"Oh no oh no oh no oh no," I wailed.

So I kept on the look out for my new friend. I saw none of the signs of mouse life. No nibbled on food kept in the cupboards, no mouse droppings in the corner. But I kept hearing things.

Between the first alleged mouse appearance and today, the first actual mouse appearance, I have been trying to convince myself there is no mouse. I hadn't seen one after all. A fellow PCV visited me one weekend and told me I was hearing things, that he couldn't hear the little scratchy noises I could hear at night.

Everything changed with a piece of bread. I was making grilled cheese sandwiches one evening with this absolutely wonderful American processed cheese (just like velveeta cheese slices!!) that I had found in Blagoevgrad. I lifted my sandwich-in-progress out of the skillet a bit to look at the bottom... And whoopsie daisies... My sammich done falt apart. The top piece of bread just flipped off and flew behind the stove. I was in the middle of grilling my yummy, oowie-gooie-cheezzzy sandwich, so I decided I would fetch my bread later. Well, sometimes megi here forgets what she says she'll do later.

Funny thing, that same fellow PCV came to visit again this weekend. I told him, "I haven't heard anything from my mousy friend."
He said, "That's because you were only imagining him."
"Yeah, maybe Chad was only joking..."
We went for a walk, and came back about thirty minutes later. I began cooking dinner and noticed a wet spot on my rug. Upon closer inspection, I realized that my washer was leaking. Well, not so much leaking. My side load wash machine had some how been filling with water. The door was not closed all the way. In our attempt to fix things, we made a huge mess! (Um, thank GOD I was not alone to deal with this!) As it turns out, I really should be turning off the water when I'm not using the wash machine. So, we had to take out the rug that lays in front of the wash machine and under the oven that's in front of the bread that Maegen dropped.

As I lay in bed that night, I said to myself (I talk to myself a lot these days, you see), "Megi, now that the oven has been moved a bit, you should fetch your slice of bread."

"Hm, good idea," I responded, "but I don't remember seeing the bread there."
"Ohh, you are right, I don't think it was there. I wonder what happened to it?"
"Ahhh, remember the time you left the back door open and the neighbor's cat snuck in and you caught her running out from behind the fridge?"
"Yeah, I remember."
"Well, maybe the cat ate the bread."
"Yeah, maybe. Goodnight."
"Добре, лейка нощ." (sometimes we talk in Bulgarian, too)

Cut to today... It's about 9am. I had class first period and won't have another until 6th, so I'm chilling online. I'm sitting in my living room, which is about eight feet from kitchen. I can swear I hear something scratching around behind my refrigerator. I go pound on the fridge. I put my cheek to the carpet and glare under the fridge. Nothing. Hm, oh well.

Now it's about 3pm. I'm chilling on the internet again; putting pics on my blog, sending SMSs for free online, downloading music, normal stuff for PCVs. ; ) (toughest job you'll ever love) I hear something that is CLEARLY a mouse under my refrigerator. I get up and again, put my cheek to the floor and gaze into the no-mans-land that is the space under the fridge.
"What is that?" I ask myself.
"Maybe it's your piece of bread."
"No, surely it's not. It's under the refrigerator. I thought the cat ate it."
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! OHMYOHMYOHHHHHHAHHHHHHH"
The little critter decided he'd run out to nibble on his feast of bread. After screaming, jumping in the chair, then scolding myself for behaving like a princess, which I am so clearly NOT, I went to the closet, took out a hanger, and finally fetched my bread. Or what was left of it. I took the garbage out and said,"Good luck now mousie!"

I sat out side with a neighbor baba (grandma) for a bit. My landlady walked out with her son and said, "Хаиди на разходка!" I mean "Come for a walk!" So we were walking and I thought to myself, "Megi," I've become Megi to myself because Мегън (do you see how boring my name is now?) is too difficult for these Bulgarians. "Megi," I said, "you should utilize this young man's English language skills." Pepi, my neighbors oldest son, is also one of my students.

So I asked him, "Как е 'mouse' на Булгарски?"
He answers, and of course I can't remember it now, something like, 'mishka.'

So I tell his mother, in Bulgarian that I have a mouse. This becomes all the drama. She tells dyado (grampa), then her husband. They decide that first they'll give me a trap. If that doesn't work, they'll give me a cat. If that doesn't work, we'll set out poison. If that doesn't work, there's a gun upstairs, hahaha. eeehhhh, okaaayyyy...

So, now I have a mouse trap. Either mice in Bulgaria are a lot more hungry, a lot less intelligent, or this thing ain't gonna work! Wish me luck!

Oh, as I was going over this very long story, my landlady came over. Now I have a cat, which I'm supposed to let out in the morning, for which I'm supposed to put out a bit of bread, who knows this region, and will tell me about my mouse once she finds it. mmm, mmkaayyyy... So now you can wish me luck with the mouse and with the cat.