For the uninitiated, the characters are myself,
my old human pal named Charlie, my wife Malodor Skunk, and Nancy Skunk, her niece. Along with assorted chilled rodents. This is in two parts, mine and Charlie's and is about an unexpected snowstorm in Ohio.
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"Did you look outside this morning, honey?" Malodor wakes me up from a sound sleep.
"Now how the hell could I, you just woke me up? Why you ask?" I rub sleep out of my eyes, getting my claw caught in the fur. A little yank does nothing but tangle it further.
That's one problem with being a famous writer, I don't wear my claws or teeth down enough on the keyboard. The doctor says I should be more active. "Get out there and chew some wood," he tells me.
"I get enough exercise walking down to the Ratskellar bar in the basement." I tell him. Trouble is, beer mugs don't wear teeth down, nor do pickled pigs feet or candied apples.
"We have ten feet of snow outside. That's why?" she replies.
Hesitantly, paw still entangled, I get up and look outside. The ground, or surface, does seem pretty close to the window. It looks firm though, the Meescoski children are playing on it without falling through. Course, mice kids don't weigh one hell of a lot.
Even as I watch, Sandy Squirrel leaves her tree, probably on her way to work at the peanut butter factory. Whoops! She sinks in, only the tip of her raised tail showing. Being larger and heavier than her, I don't know it I want to try.
The mice run over to posture and laugh at the hapless squirrel. At least until her worthless husband throws down some twine and hauls her out to watch her shuffle away, cautiously trying every step until she makes it to the plowed sidewalk.
"Damn." Tired of screwing around, I jerk my paw. It comes loose all right, along with a clump of face fur. "Youugh," I yelp. No matter. In weather like this, I'm not going anywhere. This is a good day to sit inside, write a story, and watch my claws grow. I can still get down to the bar in the basement when it opens. Maybe I can wear my teeth down with pretzels?
"Don't worry, Malodor," I turn around and tell her, "We'll stay inside until they get it plowed. In this weather, Nancy won't have any school today."
Now that I'm awake, I put on a sweater and sit down at the computer, ready for a day's work. Just as I get it booted up, the power goes off. My word processor shrinks to a dot and the screen becomes a black blank.
"It's probably all that wind and snow," Malodor quips. Meanwhile, Nancy is prancing around the apartment, happy that school's canceled.
"Cut it out, Nancy." I'm getting mad. "settle down or go sweep the hall or something. I gotta get some writing done."
"I'm going over to Uncle Charlie's," Nancy yells back, going out and slamming the door behind her.
"How'm I gonna make breakfast," Malodor complains.
"We got a gas stove, remember?"
"But my mixer won't work without electricity."
"Use your paws. You modern women are too lazy, with all these appliances. Sometimes I think we should go back to the good old days, when rodents did everything by paw and claw."
"Come on, Oscar. You know those gadgets give us women more time to do other things, more fulfilling things than simple labor."
"Like to sit on your bushy tail and watch Oprah Chipmunk."
"She has a lot of good suggestions that save money and time. Like the German apple pie I'm making for lunch."
"Maybe 'how to please your lover by fixing breakfast' or something like that?"
"Oh, shut up, baby. I'll get breakfast. Now where's that flour? I need it for our breakfast pizza."
"Women are so damn lazy these days, not like when I was a kid. My mother had to grind her own wheat to make her own flour with her own paws." I can hear Malodor banging pans around in the kitchen. "While she was doing that, us ratlets were out in snow like we got outside now, milking Bessie the cow so she could finish breakfast. Nowadays all you women gotta do is reach in a refrigerator and pour the stuff." I shake my head in wonder at all the changes in modern society.
"I'm glad you feel that way, Oscar baby. We're out of milk for breakfast and the apples are all rotten. Seeing as you like the 'good old days,' why don't you step outside and find some more?"
Uh, oh. "I'll go over to Charlie's and get Nancy to do it."
"No you won't. That little girl's got a bad cold. You get it."
"We got any canned apples or condensed milk? You can always bake a cake instead?"
"Get dressed."
"Maybe Charlie's got some?"
"He don't drink it, get your ratty ass moving."
"Okay, okay. I'll get it. You don't have to raise your tail."
I'll show her I'm still a tough old rodent. I'll walk the half-block to the store. Us old guys still remember the good old days. No problem. Just as soon as I change the batteries on my thermal underwear and socks.
Oscar Rat
***
Wham! Wham! "Uncle Charlie." The pounding on my door wakes me from a sound sleep. Three naked nymphs vanish as I'm jerked back to wakefulness.
"Who . . . who is it?" I mutter, knowing darn well it's Nancy Skunk. A bachelor, nobody else calls me Uncle Charlie. At least for quite a while.
"What you want, Nancy?" I yell from the bedroom, wishing she will go away so I can get back to sleep. Maybe those naked girls will still be there? I think, even if the goat wonders off.
"I want a writing lesson, Uncle Charlie." Her voice is clearer, she must have another key, or squeezed in through Oscar's latest rathole. I keep plugging them up, but Oscar only gnaws new ones. He says it's for my own good, that he can save me if there's a fire or something. I think it's only so he can come in and drink my booze when I'm not home. That and sneak peeks at my computer files.
Last month my "F" drive was getting full. I found a hidden directory filled with pictures of naked skunks and other rodents. Of course, old buddy Oscar didn't know anything about it. Ha!
"Get up, Uncle Charlie. Let me fix you breakfast while you get dressed?" She slams the bedroom door on me.
I hurry to get up, slipping on my trousers, not bothering with t-shirt or socks. I have to get to the kitchen before Nancy gets started. You've never eaten her cooking. Take my word for it and don't ever, but ever, let a teenager fix your breakfast. She screws up a cup of instant coffee.
"Wait, Nancy. Hold it!" I stop her before she can shove a ball of crushed bread into the toaster. It wouldn't have burnt anyway, since I can see the power's off.
"That's okay, Nancy. I feel like buttered bread, no toast. Why aren't you in school today?" I ask.
"Canceled, causea' the snow."
"What snow? It wasn't supposed to snow last night." I look outside, "Why, what happened? There must be at least ten feet of snow out there." I can't believe it. And I have to go out later.
I can see a half dozen little mice having fun, building snowmen in human shapes, then taking time to paint them yellow with mouse pee. One of them, Jimmy Meescoski, looks up at me and waves. Sandy Squirrel stands under her tree home, shaking her fist at her worthless unemployable husband. She's covered with snow, some of it yellow.
Feeling whiskers touch my cheek, I turn my head, almost bumping into Nancy. She's also watching the mice.
"Ahhhhchoooo," I get it full in the face.
"Sorry. I gotta cold," Nancy tells me needlessly, while sniffling, "and school's been canceled. Now you can give me a writing lesson. I wanna be famous like my Uncle Oscar."
Seeing a motion outside, I find Oscar Rat leaving the building. At first it's hard to recognize him. He looks like a bright purple basketball, one that's on fire.
In cold weather, Oscar wears six sweaters, at least two coats, and his battery operated underwear. Steam from his undies drifts above his stumbling figure, shimmering like smoke, as an empty plastic shopping bag slides along behind him.
Not hungry anymore, I join Nancy, who is now engaged in trying to move the monitor aside. We have to make space to shove the keyboard back, otherwise she can't stand on the desktop to use it.
"Don't bother, Nancy. There's no power. We have to use my laptop," I tell her, getting it out of the corner where it's connected to the charger.
We start to work, me instructing her on the finer points of using the letters "F" and "G", along with the number "4," from yesterday morning's Sesame Street television show.
At least she no longer grasps my wrist with her tail or backs up, pushing her tush into my face. Nancy used to have a teenage crush on me but now reserves that conduct for her boyfriend, Andy Aardvark.
We continue for awhile, until I hear cursing outside. We both look back out to see Oscar's done shopping. He's standing outside waving his paws, trying to chase mouse children while pulling his shopping bag with some groceries or something in it. Meanwhile, the young mice are throwing yellowish snowballs at him.
The angry rat is now throwing red snowballs back at the meeses. Red snow balls, I wonder. Well, that's Oscar, if anyone can find red snow, it's him.
"Oh. I gotta go now, Uncle Charlie. Aunt Malodor will have breakfast ready."
Nancy hurries out the door, slamming it behind her. I stare at the computer, wondering whether to start work or go back to bed.
"Achoooo." I sneeze, nose leaking. Damn it.
On my way out that afternoon, my nose still dripping, Mrs. Meescoski stops me in the hall.
"You look real bad, Charlie," she tells me something I don't already know.
"Yuhhuh, Mrs. Meescoski, Somon' gimme a col'"
"Come on in, I have something that'll fix you right up," she urges me, "A slice of homemade apple pie."
Charlie (Oscar Rat's Human)