Stuart Little

By now, Evi should be waiting for her connecting flight in Washington, D.C., about to swap rain for sunshine. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that she will ever read this blog post. Finally, I can share a little secret with my eager readers: I have not passed all my nights in Berkeley alone…

An evening a couple of weeks ago, I was working in my room. All was quiet and calm, except for the occasional rustling that I attributed to the leaves of the bushes under of my window. I felt like I deserved a cold beer for the good work of that evening, so I headed for the kitchen. With all the environmentalism here in California, I didn’t want to switch on the lights, so my path lay in darkness…

Upon entering the kitchen, I suddenly heard a panicky scuffling on the shelves right next to me. A very hasty being hit a couple of jars—bing, bing—rushed past some plastic bags—rustle, rustle—to finally—pouf—drop on the floor and escape into the darkness!

Jeez, I must admit that  my heartbeat skyrocketed! And to confirm the cliché: if only there had been some light and a chair nearby, I most probably would have jumped upon it. Seriously, that was my first reflex. To complete the picture, if I had been wearing a skirt, I would probably have lifted it well above my knees.

That was my first encounter with Stuart Little. Ever since, I can often hear him nibbling away at the cardboard boxes in the kitchen. Therefore, every morning I check whether my cereal-box is still intact, which so far was always the case. If he touched my food, the house might be too small for the two of us—oh no, Joey doesn’t share food! But he seems to prefer Hilary’s nuts to my cereals, so why bother?

Yesterday evening, I finally got to actually see him. I was cooking, and suddenly he decided to make his way from one side of the kitchen to the other, probably going out for dinner behind the stove. However, in doing so, he also gave away his hideout:

The hole was probably made for a tube or something, and Stuart Little put it to good use after it became unnecessary.

Evi and I will still pass a couple of nights in Berkeley before we leave for Yosemite National Park. That’s why I couldn’t tell this story while she was still in Belgium. Imagine that she refused to share the house with Stuart wandering around at night!

Now here’s my dilemma. Should I tell Hilary and the others about Stuart’s hole? On the one hand, Stuart has been eating Hilary’s nuts for quite a while now and this situation will sooner or later lead to conflicts. But then again, Stuart and I also shared some very passionate moments in the last weeks (if you measure the degree of passion in heartbeats per minute, probably on both sides) so I cannot just give him up, now can I? Maybe they are going to use napalm or cluster bombs on his nest…

Let’s put it to a vote. If you think I should tell Hilary about the hole, then add a comment to this post stating “YES,” followed by a convincing reason that can ease my conscience. If you think I shouldn’t, say “NO,” followed by a good excuse that I can use later when Hilary will no doubt blame me for not having told her, after grandpa Stuart and his extended family had a serious party in the kitchen or something.