When mice skitter across your kitchen counter in broad daylight, it\u2019s time to call in the pros. That\u2019s how Dave the Exterminator came into my life. He was the White Knight to my Damsel in Distress, and I fell for him hard.<\/p>\n

Dave praised me for correctly identifying mouse droppings in the cutlery drawer. \u201cMost people are way more in denial\u2014they think they\u2019re coffee grounds,\u201d he cooed. Who wouldn\u2019t love a guy willing to credit me with astuteness when it had actually taken mice traipsing through the dinner preparations for me to give him a call?<\/p>\n

Dave came, he soothed, he plugged my holes. Like a partner who loves you anyway despite cottage cheese thighs, he reassured me that mice were a natural part of living next to open space, not a sign of dubious housekeeping or moral rot. Best of all, he came every couple of days with his little black bag to discreetly remove the corpses. The dog loved him. Who can resist a man who passes the pet test?<\/p>\n

My friends tried to temper my infatuation. \u201cSure, he\u2019s cheerful and reliable. But do you really want to throw over your husband for\u00a0a guy whose name is stitched above his pocket and who carries around dead mice in a briefcase?\u201d<\/p>\n

They had a point. But even if it wasn\u2019t true love, my first exterminator will forever have a place in my heart. Also on my refrigerator, since his company\u2019s magnet reassures me that Dave is there for me should I ever be invaded by mice again.<\/p>\n

Today Mick the Termite Man arrived on my doorstep. Having a doorstep meant the house was still standing, so the call was obviously premature. Since I wasn\u2019t buried by a towering mound of sawdust, I saw no need for further Exterminator Lust. But the Homeowner\u2019s Association insisted that I go on this blind date, interested or not.<\/p>\n

The dog liked Mick as much as he\u2019d liked Dave, but this time I was more discerning. Politely bored, I only half listened as he told me about what he\u2019d found in probing my siding. He showed me a tiny hole near the garage harboring termite feces. With unseemly excitement, he said there was no way to tell if the infestation had just begun or had been there for years. For $4,000 he\u2019d be glad to tent the\u00a0house and kill everything in it. Except, of course, the termites might come back right away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the point, then?\u201d I asked, like a woman pushing 40 finding out after the first cocktail that her date has suspicious gaps in his resume and no interest in having children. Why bother to even order an appetizer? Chitchat over bruschetta is for those with time on their hands and hope in their hearts.<\/p>\n

Maybe the dog was still a sucker for animal magnetism, but my taste had matured. This was a guy who went around pumping poisonous gas into people\u2019s houses, after all! And the termites, unlike their rodent counterparts, were hardly causing me to shriek and jump on top of the stove in a pathetic pre-feminist caricature. If they wouldn\u2019t bother me for several years, who was I to bother them?<\/p>\n

Sorry, Mick. Sure, you can give me your phone number. I\u2019ll maybe call to set something up. Like after the house collapses.<\/p>\n

But wait a minute. There on the corner of the estimate was a faint notation in red ink: \u201cTell about rats.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s this?\u201d I asked, pulse quickening.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, there are some rat droppings, nothing much . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

Move over, Dave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When mice skitter across your kitchen counter in broad daylight, it\u2019s time to call in the pros. That\u2019s how Dave the Exterminator came into my life. He was the White Knight to my Damsel in Distress, and I fell for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"R is for Rodents: A Pestilence of Love for Day 18 of the A-Z Blogging Challenge!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,8,36,349],"tags":[212,390,391,392,393],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2F8Ch-hv","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1085"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1090,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions\/1090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}