Table for one

I'm sitting at home alone drinking Pinot Noir and eating homemade baked beans and it occurs to me, I broke up with my last girlfriend in the fall of 1997. That's not a typo. 1997--about 9 years ago! I don't really remember why I broke up with Mary. She was a sweet girl.

I take that back. I do know why I broke up with her. I had been "in love" with Mary for awhile before we started dating, but fell out of love quite rapidly one day when I felt she snubbed me after not seeing me for a long time. Unfortunately it was only after that when we began dating, if I can use that term. We never actually went out on a date. We were just "boyfriend/girlfriend" for a couple days before we went back to college in separate states.

Forgive me. This isn't about Mary. She's actually still a very sweet woman, with a husband and family and we remain friends...though somewhat distant. No. This is about me.

For nine years now I have been very optimistic. I have pursued several girls who were "out-of-my-league" as you might say. But I'm not a very aggressive person. In fact, where my love life is concerned, I'm rather timid. I've been the "best friend" for years only to lose out to another guy. I blame myself, mostly. I move very slowly. Like a glacier. Yes! I'm a glacier!!

In 1997, of course, I was in college and I, of course, thought I had a shot with anybody...especially the drunk girls at the theatre parties (odds are even better for the straight guys at the theatre parties, for obvious reasons). And while I thought I had a shot with them all, in the back of my mind was my "best friend" who I'd been pursuing glacially. My loyalty to that dream kept me, well...on the bench.

After graduation, there really wasn't that constant stream of available and drunk women to keep me in the game. From then on, every waitress, cashier, and video store clerk became my dream girl of the moment. My logical and rational mind would never allow me to pursue those relationships, though.

When I joined the cast of "Tony n' Tina's Wedding" in 2001, it was like college all over again, only this time EVERY NIGHT was a drunken theatre party and out of 150-300 people, at least one of them might be of interest to me. I used to say I fell in love every night for two and a half years. And if I couldn't find the right woman at the show, she was sure to turn up at the bar afterwards.

Here I am now, with my Pinot Noir and my homemade baked beans. I've been out of that show for over two-and-a-half years and the social highlight of my week usually consists of a trip to the grocery store. My personal integrity prevents me from asking a woman out while I'm at work, or while she's at work, or even while she's trying to get to work! I work at The Hershey Company and have the entire world of chocolate at my fingertips, yet the only place you'll ever find me when I'm not at work is at home.

If you've kept up with this blog, you know of my failed escapades last winter on the train. This week, after pursuing my hairdresser at the usual glacial speed, I've been treated to the usual response of telling silence. Even internet dating has failed me as I come to the final days of my subscription.

Like 1997, I remain optimistic, even if I've never been the type to not look down the road. Even if each of those daily crushes in the old show were, in my head, the next Mrs. Dan Marrero. Even if sometimes I wish I was able to put that part of me aside and just go for Miss For Now. But it's not in me. So I meet and re-meet each single attractive woman with the same thought: Are you the one?

I'll find her someday. I just hope there's enough Pinot Noir to get me there. The baked beans weren't all that good.

Of Mice and Dan

Well my faithful and patient readers, it's been about three weeks and you haven't heard anything from me. Let me tell you one of difficulties of writing a blog: I try to be honest, humorous, informative, and personal on my blog and sometimes things happen in life that are a little too personal to write (or that I have no business writing) about. That's been quite the case lately. And though I find it easy not to write about these things, it is much more difficult to find something as relevant to write about. After personal struggles and deaths, we often wonder when we're allowed to laugh again. That time, I believe, can't come too soon. But sensitivity is still required.

With all that said I, personally, am doing well. Optimism still springs eternal here. And so, let's all agree to move on!

There is a recent and growing mouse epidemic in Evanston, Illinois, apparently. I've been doing my part to control this problem ever since I noticed it. Let me give you an estimated timeline:

Several months ago, my roommate began to complain about this smell in our home (one of three connected townhome condominiums). I sniffed and sniffed, but all I could smell was the scent of her dog, so I thought. She noted an increase in the odor and was certain that there was a dead mouse rotting somewhere in our walls. Still, I smelled nothing.

Several weeks later, I woke up and came downstairs. As I arrived at the bottom, I was punched in the mouth by whatever this repulsive smell was. Yes, it was that same smell as I had smelled before, but unbearably putrid. I couldn't even cover my nose to escape. Immediately I bought a six pack of glue traps and some lint remover (lint remover?) to try to eradicate the problem. When I returned home, I investigated the smell. Loads of mouse poop (not rat poop, I've learned, for it was the size of rice, not beans) behind a bench in the dining room, along with more behind the refrigerator and oven. I picked the poop off the carpet with the lint remover and set three glue traps behind the bench (also cleared out the bench entirely) and three in the kitchen.

A week or two passed, no action. Then, the night before an exterminator was scheduled to arrive, I saw a mouse run into the house from the back door, and right behind the oven (where there were no traps set). Immediately, as I thought I could scare him out of there, I moved one of the glue traps to the side of the oven so that he'd get stuck trying to run back out. Didn't work.

The next day the exterminator arrived. He diagnosed us with "about 6 to 8 mice", treated the house with several poison blocks which, when eaten, will coagulate the mouse's blood and turn him into a ball of fuzz, sans odor, which we may never even see. It will also turn their poop blue/green. All the mice should be dead within "seven to 10 days", but he gave me a stack of glue traps to satisfy my need to see one dead.

A month later, we've seen no more mice. We've heard no more mice. We've smelled...well, we really didn't think we smelled any more mice. Then, all the sudden, as I'm making my morning coffee, I hear a squeak. We've got a mouse! He was stuck on a glue trap where, presumably frightened, he's pooped some blue/green poop. "What should I do?" I thought. Should I wait until he dies before I throw him away? Should I put him out of his misery? Or should I throw him in a bag and let time do the rest? I chose option three. Whether he died of poison, starvation, suffocation, or by being crushed by garbage, I'll never know. But he was gone.

A week later, we've had no more mice. Could the smell, the poop, the hassle--could it all have been caused by one single little mouse? NOPE! Over the course of the next week, we caught FOUR MORE MICE, including one who, when caught on the glue trap, presumably carried the thing over six feet, pooping (brown poop) all along the way before coming to rest right out in the open, next to the dog's bed (the dog was not nearby). These things were everywhere, and we realized that, since all of our townhome neighbors have since moved out (and one left piles of food and garbage in their back yard) that the mice have come to the one home left with any warmth...and possible food.

Five mice all received the same treatment. Stuck on a glue trap, thrown in a plastic bag, and dumped in the garbage. All along the way, I've grown increasingly able to identify when we've got a mouse simply by sniffing it out. I smell the smell, I say "we've got a mouse" and find one on the trap.

So, yesterday, after a nearly two weeks of mouse-silence, I came home and smelled the smell. I checked in the kitchen, where the dog had been sleeping most of the morning. I wasn't fooled. There wasn't a mouse on the trap, but I knew there was one around...somewhere...mocking me. And at around 8pm, he made his presence known. When I heard a rattling in the kitchen, I knew I had caught another little mouse bastard! And there he was, a tiny little guy, stuck and struggling, but hard to get to. I was on the phone at the time, so there was no real urgency to pick him up, but when I hung up and attempted to clean up number 6, I saw another mouse peek his head out from under the oven. This problem is not over yet. (So much for "seven to 10 days"!)

Now, I know that little rat-bastard (so to say) is down there. And I was in the kitchen just before I began writing this. I shined a flashlight on the trap and saw a little mouse tail whip around and run away. This mouse is proving to be a formidable opponent, but rest assured, he will suffer the same fate as all the rest. And when my superhero mouse sniffing sense is piqued, I know the end is near.

Until then, Number 7, enjoy your final hours!