A Little Story

Looks like it snowed in Illinios! I have a little story about these columns you see in my back yard. Columns like these at the Grand Canyon inspired us to have this arch and a patio with a seating wall built as our 25th anniversay gift to each other. We employed our friend Barry and his son to build the thing, and the columns were finished except for the caps. I was working in my office over the garage when they came to install the caps, and a bit later, there was a knock on my office door. I found Barry standing on the landing, trying to speak. I think he had what is officiallly termed the Heebie Jeebies. He would begin to speak, then shudder and make noises like 'Ewwwwww!' I waited for him to calm down. He finally was able to tell the story though it was frequently punctuated with shudders. Willies is, I beleive, another term for what he was experiencing. Some might term it The Creeps. For as Barry told it, when he reached up from the ladder to pull himself up to slather the mortar onto the top of a column, bits of something fell on him. When he shook them out of his hair and off his shoulders, it was "hundreds and hundreds of mouse tails and mouse ears and . . . eeewwwww . . . mouse feet . . . " Turns out, the nieghbors had recently adopted twin kittens, who were living outdoors and apparently, prolific at the hunt. They were, it seems, carrying their kill up to the tops of the columns where they could safely dine without fear of another cat stealing their meal. I bet if you asked Barry today about the columns he build in my backyard, you would still get him to shudder! Imagine - hundreds of severed mousie appendages raining into YOUR hair - did I get you to shudder?