In a throw back Thursday fashion, I figured the current issues we are having in our house should inspire me to tell you a story that I experienced awhile back when I lived in Alaska.
Currently our hot water heater has decided to begin leaking. This is after earlier this year the pilot light would go out constantly and was fixed, but now that it is leaking it is time for a new one. In the grand scheme of things this is not a big deal, and because we are renting really not a problem to us except for planning the time for the plumber to come and do the installation. Another issue we are having is we have mice. I despise mice and I figured with a cat, we shouldn't have mice, but the cat cannot get into our back room of the basement and that is where the little evil animals are hiding. Of course I will be dealing with this mouse issue sooner than later, but I am still grossed out by the little vermin.
Enough with the present, lets go back about ten years. My first teaching gig was in a fly-in village in Alaska. It was a great way to start my teaching experience, however there were a couple things that made the experience even more memorable. One would be the day my coworker/housemate were visited by an unexpected visitor in our district housing. It was winter time and we had cooked scallops the night before for dinner. I had come home from the school and I noticed there were green beans and remnants of a scallop on the floor. I just assumed the food didn't make it into the garbage can from the lunch left overs and picked it up and threw it away. I then went on with my evening and began to cook dinner and grade papers. While cooking, I vaguely remember my housemate asking me all these weird questions if I was scratching on the wall while she was in the bathroom, but it was winter in Alaska and we were all going stir crazy so I really didn't think too much into it.
It wasn't until later in the evening that both my housemate and I were in the living room watching tv and I went into the kitchen to get something. Something caught my eye close to the washer and dryer across from the kitchen. It was pretty big for a rodent and had beady little eyes. I jumped up on one of the dining room chairs and process what I saw. After saying many colorful words, I proceeded to scream that we had an ermine in our house and the chaos began. That bugger was fast and he ran behind the washer and dryer.
What I did next is not necessarily the most sane thing, but I put on my shoes because we were going to shoo him out of the house and I guess I did not want him to bite my feet. I remember banging on the washer and dryer to get him out of there, and he ran into our front entry and we slammed the door and slid boxes in front of the door so he couldn't weasel his way back in through the cracks. Now we had an ermine in our entry way and this is when even more crazy occurs. We tried to see if we could open that door to the entry way from the outside. Of course I was armed with a big snow shovel because that and the shoes made me an ermine hunter! When we opened that door from the outside, not only did we get crazy looks from the villagers that were waiting for the gym to be opened up at the school, but there was no ermine. Where did this crazy animal go? The only conclusion we could figure is he got into the hot water heater room that was in the entry way. It was apparent he could get under doors with cracks...great! Of course before going back into the house we decided to put flour on the floor so we could see if he left out the door. We were great trackers. :)
Back in the house we barricaded the door to the entry way as well as we could. I mean seriously this thing was not going to get back in the house. We then started to google information on ermines. The Internet was not my friend back then either ladies and gentleman because I barely slept that night. In fact I slept with shoes on, a turtle neck, and a broom. I remember saying how it was going to go straight for the jugular if it was going to get us in our sleep. Needless to say the ermine did not return, however he gave us a gift of no hot water. My theory is he peed on the pilot light as he escaped in the hole that was in that little hot water heater room. Although it was probably just the wind that blew it out due to the door being left open, but my theory ten years ago sounds much cooler.
Our house was eventually fixed so there were no areas underneath the house for animals to get under and the pilot light was lit and we had hot water again. I don't think we had scallops for the rest of the year and it created a story I will never forget.
In the grand scheme of things, my current situation with a few mice and a leaky hot water heater, is nothing compared to that event of attack of the ermine.
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