The Mouse Sander And The Coffee Cup

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

The Mouse Sander and the Coffee Cup

“Quick. She went to answer the door,” the woman said.

He hesitated, by the blue glowing oval of the time portal “Are we sure we want to do this? She’s a minor author of no consequence, at the edge of the turmoils.”

The redhead, lifted her head from the time-scope. “Oh, come on, Bril, you know how hot all the antiques from the 21st century are. And the fact she was a minor celebrity helps.”

Bril sighed. Someday he would learn to say no to pretty women, but probably not today.

“Do the records show how long she is by the door?”

“Are you kidding? Most was lost in the turmoils. Just go.”

He hurried through the portal, shuddering as he crossed the time barrier. On the other side, he found himself in a small hall, filled with a bewildering number of boxes. The woman was at the door, speaking to a younger man.

He was so afraid she’d turn, he grabbed the first two objects he could reach and ran back.

Turned out what he’d brought back was a cup still filled with coffee — apparently King Harv’s Coffees Earth blend, if the timescope showed the package on her counter right — and a small sander.

The objects fetched a good price at auction, not the least for the possibility of recreating 21st century coffee, but also stray author-DNA on the cup’s rim. The sander fetched less.

But Bril and the girl got to watch the minor, irrelevant 21st century author wander the house cursing up a blue streak for losing her coffee and what she called the mouse sander.

“They sanded mice in the 21st century?” The redhead asked.

“I don’t know. The whole time was psychotic. That’s how we got the turmoils.”

“Yeah. Maybe. I’m glad I’m here with you now, instead, Bril,” the redhead said.

…. And that’s my story of what happened to my coffee cup and mouse sander yesterday morning, which we haven’t been able to locate no way no how. And we include a contractor who might have been sent as the answer to a prayer, so I don’t die doing this.

I’ll be going home for some portion of the weekend, to see my husband and cats, but I will try to post. This house will, unfortunately, probably take another week.

However a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders and things look doable.

Supposing we don’t go over the edge in the next month, we’ll be okay. So, fingers crossed.

You guys behave, while I get this finished.

197 thoughts on “The Mouse Sander And The Coffee Cup”

        1. 100%

          “Cats are cranky because they are God’s Perfect Killing Machines, and we keep putting them in fluffy hats and making kissy noises.”

          1. In one of the Eddings books he has the child-goddess Aphraeldresing her kitten in a dress – she doesn’t know why human children do this, but it’s the custom.

            2. 1) Intelligent people know that Tinker Bell was fictional.

              2) Intelligent people know that even Tinker Bell could be nasty (and otherwise dangerous). 😈

              1. 3.) Intelligent people with semi-decent memories remember that TInkerbell could be pretty vicious if she didn’t like someone.

              2. And how many people have read Barrie’s book? Look at what’s on Disney+ and how they portray faeries and sprites… That’s what’s in people’s heads. Not the blood dyed caps.

            3. Blame the witch hunters. Burning people at the stake for dealings with you does encourage writers to make it clear that their figures are not that type.

            1. I do kissy faces, but I’m quite respectful of the “not TODAY, human” messages, so the only scar I have might be from the rose bush I was helping the cat out of, neither of us was sure. 😀

              2. I have an impressive collection of puppy-induced scars from Kat the border collie. She’s teething, which makes her temperament a wee bit volatile. Most of the nicks are scratches, but she can get in a bitey mood, and I have a couple of small wounds from that.

                Mercifully, it takes a really deep wound to give me a lasting scar. Don’t have any from Kat. Yet. 🙂

          4. And some of them do go for constant snuggles… *Looks at C and R, who have been competing for lap time since I got home*

        3. Well, yeah. Men keep dating small redheads. And tiny goth girls. They know it’s small and deadly and vicious, and does that stop ’em?

          Heck, I’m a woman, I should know better, and yet look at my exes… Didn’t stop me!

          1. Well, yeah. Men keep dating small redheads. And tiny goth girls. women.

            FIFY.

            I’d put “humans,” but some of us aren’t small.

            :big grin:

              2. George Carlin said that all women are crazy, he went on to say that women were crazy because men were stupid.

                1. Women are really territorial and love to know they’re boss.

                  But they also love to feel like their man is boss.

                  Chaucer didn’t understand it, either, but he did some good documentation/illustration.

                  1. Women are really territorial and love to know they’re boss.

                    Oh. That’s what it was. LOL.

                    The family is trying to decide where we’re having Thanksgiving this year, and my brother, who is married said “Let have it at my house, but you and Mom will have to cook.”

                    And it didn’t occur to me that the reason it felt wrong is because my brother is inviting his sister and mother to cook in his wife’s kitchen, and husband can’t do that, head-of-household or not, no matter how pregnant his wife is.

                    (There’s no discord between the members of the distaff side in this case, and Mom and I aren’t strongly territorial about kitchens, but still…)

                    XD

                    4. *laughs* It’s possible Brother had a conversation with his wife that boiled down to “Sure, we have lots of room for people, but I’m already tired and I’m going to be even more pregnant-tired by then, I couldn’t do the cooking. I don’t know if they’d WANT to deal with it, although it would be nice to not have to Go Somewhere…..”

                      My Husband’s family has that as the standard Thanksgiving mode– if it’s at Your House, then you only do the turkey. All the rest of the cooking (and dish-cleaning!) is done by the guests.

                  2. >> “Women are really territorial and love to know they’re boss. But they also love to feel like their man is boss.”

                    I have a hypothesis about this: neither sex is truly crazy. But they have different survival strategies and each one evolved to have a psychological focus that compliments THEIR strategy, whether it makes sense to the other side or not.

                    This will be a bit long.

                    For men, the basic strategy is to master nature and wrest a living from it. We’re the hunters, builders, fighters, etc. And when it’s time to deal with the most dangerous and physically demanding aspects of nature we’re the ones who have to step up. The problem here is that nature can’t be emotionally manipulated. If you’re about to die of exposure in a storm, for example, you can’t talk the storm into going away; you either know how to find/make shelter or you’re dead.

                    Thus, male brains evolved to be heavily fact-oriented. Because we need to know how nature actually works to survive dealing with its harshest aspects.

                    But women are built for pregnancy, not physical prowess, so they’re generally not up to dealing with the worst of that stuff even when they’re NOT pregnant. And even if they were physically up to it they’re too reproductively valuable to risk in the field. They evolved to stay home and let men handle the really dangerous work for them. So the basic female survival strategy is to manipulate others – especially men – into helping them.

                    But unlike nature men CAN be emotionally manipulated, and if anything we might be especially vulnerable to it coming from women. Let’s face it – men evolved to want women kept safe and happy and women evolved to exploit the ever-loving HELL out of that. Not always fun for the men, but it’s how the species survives.

                    Thus, the female brain is more oriented towards processing emotions and social situations than the male brain.

                    But this leaves women with a serious problem. Between the different hormone mix needed for pregnancy and the different brain architecture needed to survive, women are much more emotional than men. The problem is that greater emotionalism is the opposite of a survival trait; going on tilt at the wrong time can get you hurt, ruined or even killed. But since the greater emotionalism is an unavoidable consequence of other traits women need to have they can’t just evolve past it. They’re stuck with that dangerous flaw forever and need some way to compensate.

                    This is another area where men can help them. We’re not immune to going on emotional tilt, but on average we’re better at resisting it. And because we’re more fact-oriented we’re better at seeing some dangers and how to deal with them. This means we can help women survive by substituting our judgement for theirs when necessary, IF they’ll listen to us. When the bull is charging and a man yells “MOVE,” the woman who obeys gets to live and reproduce. The woman who puts her hands on her hips and says “Don’t you tell me what to d-” goes splat.

                    That’s why women are drawn to assertive men (or at least one reason for it). They don’t want to be controlled in all things – that’s just stifling – but the female hindbrain wants a man who can and will take charge and stop her when she’s about to destroy herself. This is also why women are instinctively repulsed by men who are too servile; the hindbrain is saying “This man won’t save me if I’m about to get myself killed.”

                    This is what causes the infamous “shit test,” where even normally-rational woman will start acting in an unreasonable way towards or around a man for no apparent reason. She’s testing to see if he has the backbone to stand up to her instead of going along with crazy (whether he has good judgement or cares enough to use it for her benefit are separate problems). This is a basic instinct for females and they will occasionally act on it whether they want to or not. Or whether they even realize they’re doing it or not. And it can appear crazy to a man who doesn’t understand it.

                    All that said, some women really ARE just nuts. But sometimes what seems nuts on the surface has a good, evolutionary reason behind it.

              5. a) crazy and dysfunctional sometimes overlap, but are not identical sets
                b) some of the crazy is actually extremely functional.
                c) it is possible for a man to have an unusually well developed sense of ‘that is crazy. Crazy is bad. Stay clear of the crazy.’
                d) I probably overestimate male craziness.
                e) female behavior in American society may not be a good predictor of overall crazy levels of female human behavior.
                f) We are almost certainly noticing and retaining different things than you would notice and retain.
                g) I have some ideas for a long dive into estimates of whether males are satisfied or not with levels of female crazy, but I’m pretty sure there is nothing conclusive in it. Some of the material is perhaps of the creepy stories/inappropriate for sharing with most groups sort of thing.

              6. >> “As a straight woman, I’ve never understood what men see in women. Women are crazy.”

                Well, the men who DON’T see anything in women aren’t the ones passing their genes on. So I guess you’ve made us crazy too, and at a genetic level no less. 😛

          2. At one point, my husband pointed out that he did have a thing for women who could “kick his a**.”

            I blinked at him and asked why on earth he’d ever dated me, then.

            ….the overgrown sprout just smirked at me….

            1. If I could figure out women and shoes I’d own the world. The wife says it’s because they always fit but that only scratches the surface. But did I figure out shoes, I’d then have to figure out throw pillows.

              1. 1) I am a woman who 2) gets an absurd amount of freelance income from writing home decor content and 3) does not understand throw pillows either. My best guess is that it’s the appeal of something lush-looking and heavily textured without buying a wholedamnnew sofa/bed/armchair. I just writes it, I doesn’t *get* it.

          3. Well, yeah. Men keep dating small redheads. And tiny goth girls. They know it’s small and deadly and vicious, and does that stop ’em?

            And they get all heart-eyed when they see a young lady trounce them in target practice.

          4. I married a small redhead. 33 years now. Not a goth though. My daughter, another redhead, married a redhead. She has a T-shirt she’s fond of wearing that says “I have a thing for ginger.”

            1. Well, the other Cypriot stray the family have brought home (Pottery Cat, because he spent most of that summer sitting on my sister’s work table while she tried to put pieces of bronze age pottery back together) looks much more like a regular domestic cat.

              View post on imgur.com

              2. Well, just as there are dogs and there are Dogs – ie, “something dog-shaped” versus “Mankind’s Partner” — there are cats and there are Cats. Any domestic feline is a cat, but very few of them embody the essential Cat: the Ultimate Predator, the finest killing machine in Nature.

              2. And I can imagine myself saying it back as well, with “princess” appended to the end. One gets the impression he’s that kind of ball-buster.

    2. One should certainly sand mice if they have rough surface. After all one does not want to get splinters from their mice…

        1. Dang some one find an Egyptian Mau or Peterbald cat to deal with that post haste. Lordy that’s ugly, enough to cause nightmares in small children. I’d say that was OVER sanded.

  6. I had a crowbar disappear for exactly a month and reappear in the tool bucket reserved for long tools like levels, said bucket having been checked multiple times in the interim.

    1. This week I’ve lost a #10 tin can that I use every day. This can has been with me for 15 years or so, and now POOF.

      Time to go to the pizza parlor and get more cans… somehow I’m down to one.

      Last year I lost a whole stack of work jeans. You’d think a stack a foot high would be obvious, somewhere, anywhere…??? this house isn’t that big!!

      BUT NOW! All is explained! and when they sell my jeans, I WANT A CUT OF THE PROFITS!!!!

    1. You’d think so.
      My FIRST engraving tool failed to reappear for so long, I have another.
      AND… the FIRST did NOT reappear shortly after that.
      Yeah, I know, being Mythical can have some side effects.

      1. Going into 11th grade when my elder daughter was going to take Pre Calc and Chemistry she realized she could NOT find her TI-59 calculator (officially required for both classes). We hunted ALL over the house, nothing. So finally we bought her a new one day before school started. Second day in school her best friend says “Oh, here is your calculator you loaned me for a test end of last year when my calculator’s battery was dead”. Younger daughter ended up with the returned one…

      2. I had a Leatherman tool that disappeared for a few years. Searched everywhere, especially under the driver’s seat of the truck, no luck. Naturally, when it appeared, it was under the driver’s seat of the truck. OTOH, the Winchester multi-tool that I bought is different eonough that both tools are quite useful.

        Oh yeah, the black case just might have been a contributing factor…

        1. Yep, I have a new glasses case because I couldn’t find the one I was using… until after I bought the new one, and then it was right between the seat and the center console just where I’d carefully searched as the prime suspect.

          Oh, well!

          1. A dollar store kitchen knife (well worth that dollar!) managed to utterly be camouflaged by being lain down on the top rack of the dishwasher. Actual camouflage is LESS effective!

            1. I carefully set aside a pair of brand new speed-loaders where I could easily find them in low light. I can find the cases, but not the actual items. Grrrrrr.

        2. Dad had a tool that vanished under the pickup seat.

          Reappeared under the pickup seat, too.

          …

          Different pickup. They’d sold pickups since then….

  10. *Nods.* You’ll find it when you unpack the right box, probably three years from now. Hopefully the fairies dumped the coffee before they slipped to cup into an already sealed box.

  11. Glad you got help and continued good luck with everything.

    I lost some sewing stuff, searched high and low, no luck. Then, a few weeks later it reappeared in a spot where I KNOW I searched at least four or five times. Maybe my darning egg and stray socks didn’t sell so they gave them back…

    1. I have decided that the only logical reason for that sort of here/not here/here again is that I’m switching between universes. The bubble on the oil tank in the basement has never shifted back to where it was when we bought the house.

      1. That is the premise of the book I (sort of accidentally published) that was a Prometheus Award finalist (didn’t win): “The Fractal Man”.

  13. Sorry about losing your DNA like that.

    *Shudders to think what horrors will be created with stolen DNA from beautiful but evil space princess*

    Prayers up for a successful trip home and a triumphant conclusion to your labors!

    1. Keeps you awake.
      Elevates your blood pressure.
      Makes you want to crap.

      Calling it Joe may not be undeserved.

  18. I’m sure you know this by now, not being in your first rodeo, but it happens when unpacking, too. A box labeled “placemats and sharp knives” turns out to contain baseball caps and the silverware, but no sharp knives, let alone placemats.

    I _think_ I just signed the last of the closing “paperwork” for the Denver house, retroactively legitimatizing (I accidentally coined that as a typo, but I’ve decided I like it) events that have already occurred. It’s no longer my problem (but I’ve thought that several times over the last month). That process has stained my soul. I’m working on forgiving trespasses; it’s not going well.

  20. Saw over at Instapundit that BGE’s “favorite” mainland China company – Evergrande – had its management effectively taken hostage by angry investors.

    That’s some Chinese behavior that it might not hurt to emulate here in the States…

    1. I’d be very surprised if Evergrande still exists on Monday. The only question then is who’s swimming naked.

      This event was in Nanking. The main HQ is in Shenzhen. The police there have seized the central HQ and many of the protestors have been “taken away”.

      Pray for the little guys, they’re likely about to be wiped out, if they’re lucky,

      1. Also, everyone is talking like this is Lehman. It could be but it “feels” more like Enron. of course, It’s a question of who their counter parties are and how highly leveraged the whole system is. It may surprise you that the US and a lesser extent Europe are not in nearly as bad shape as they were in 2008. What shape China is in no one knows but they have loads more debt than we do and not as much depth to absorb it. let’s hope they deal with the contagion better than they dealt with WuFlu.

        1. Urrggh Not good, distinctly not good. The most dangerous animal is one that is wounded and China now has a lovely self inflicted wound. Also foreign adventures are a traditional way to take peoples minds off of domestic issues.

          1. Foreign adventures launched by Chinese governments have pretty much *all* ended as very expensive and costly (both in men and money) fiascos.

            The most recent “serious” attempt was the invasion of Vietnam.

                2. Point Taken. My concern is collateral damage when a Nuclear armed country starts flailing with a couple Nuclear armed neighbors.

                  1. Which, it should be noted, has already happened. India’s got its own nukes, after all.

                    But even though there’s fighting, that dispute hasn’t risen to the level where nukes are justified. For the time being, nukes will probably remain as a deterrent if there’s a nuclear armed power on the other side. I.E. “Sure, we’ll shoot at you, and you’ll shoot back at us. But don’t put us in a spot where we’ve got nothing left to lose.”

                    1. Junior that’s the nub of the issue. If everything starts to go pear shaped for Xi and his cronies will they try that as their last gambit? Or will they screw up control of their erstwhile buddies the Taliban and then the Taliban get nukes from Pakistan (who officially hate them, but parts of the government like ISI seem to be their friends) and do something really stupid? Odds of it going worldwide seem slim, but 10-s to low hundreds of nukes lobbed indiscriminately among 3 Billion people will not be pretty.

                    2. That only works if you are not dealing with fanatics, such as the Mullahs, who think they will be saved because they are engaged in holy war, if they die they are martyrs, or if the enemy does not believe that its adversary has the will to respond in kind. A deterrent only works if it is credible. I can readily see our adversaries believing that Team HarrisBiden will be incapable (due to Senile Joe’s mental infirmity) or/and unwilling to retaliate if they set of a high altitude EMP against us (they don’ even need to nuke a city to do us massive harm) or flat out nuke our cities. Does anyone think the feckless military leadership as exemplied by the USA hating traitor Milley will actually launch nukes even if the White House cabal orders it?

                      As far as other nuclear flashpoints, it won’t be Pakistan v India or CCP v India that results in a nuclear exchange; it will be the Mullahs and their proxies attacking Israel with nukes that will be the start as they know Team HarrisBiden and the Democrats along with most of Europe would pretty much blame Israel and Jews generally because Jews had the nerve to dare live in their multi-millenia old historic homeland. The one thing that has always united leftists and Jihadists is hatred of Jews.

            2. very expensive and costly (both in men and money)

              Yeah, but how is that doing to be a disadvantage for the ruling class?

              1. Money will be an issue.

                Hmm. Men will anger their parents and chiefly hit the manly men they talk about needing.

                  1. And the Males removed are those that are more aggressive. Anyone noticed lots of two headed three legged Cecil the Sea Sick sea serpent critters roaming about?

                2. Bingo.

                  Manpower losses might cause effects that are less immediately apparent (though still a problem long-term). But money is front and center, particularly when the government is dealing with a massive financial hit to the economy. Evergrande’s collapse means that the economy just took a big blow, and a lot of average citizens are now wondering what just happened to their savings. Going on an expensive foreign jaunt might not be the best idea at this time, particularly since the retirement savings problem will still be there when the war is over.

                  1. Leaving aside the possibilities for violence and the major differences in political systems, China right now reminds me very much of Japan in 1991. Very large real-estate bubble — proportionately they’re similar in scale — and a demographic cliff. Some might remember how Japan was going to take over the world and grow forever, same in China of course. Japan RE will never hit those levels again and Japanese stocks are still below the October 1989 high.

                    Differences: Japan was rich, China is poor; Japan is a democracy, China not; The rest of the world was about to hit a demographic “sweet spot,” now we’re looking at general decline, China was opening, China is closing. One could go on but none of these factors are good for China.

                    It looks as though Evergrande will default but that it will not be a disorderly crash. That’s good for all the rest of us. One of the great Bob Farrell’s laws was when all the experts agree something will happen, it won’t. All the experts, real experts not government or academic, think we’re in for a really rough ride. Make of that what you will.

                    Lot’s of commentary about Evergrande being China’s Lehman. A better choice would be Bear Sterns. The crash of 2008 actually started early in 2007 when liquidity conditions started to decline, then a “bomb” went off over the summer of 2007. The big problem wasn’t Lehman it was actually AIG who had sold all the “hedges.” Lehman going broke AIG and AIG going would have broken everyone else. The Fed dumped “liquidity” all through 2007/8, which is the solution to a liquidity problem. the issue is that a liquidity problem and a solvency problem look very much the same but the solutions are very different.

                    A small “bomb” went of in February 2021 and it’s still going on. Its not really in the US banks, they’re not in bad shape, though that could change. I think that it’s all China and it might be solvency, not liquidity.

                    A liquidity crisis is a temporary loss. Time will cure it, you just need to get along. A solvency crisis is permanent, time won’t cure it. A Liquidity problem is treated by, well, liquidity. In solvency, your roll it up and try to limit the damage. Treating a solvency crisis as a liquidity crisis is what makes zombies and allows losses to be socialized while gains are privatized. An example of the proper way to treat solvency is the way the Swedes dealt with their banks when they were insolvent. They rolled them up, wiped out the shareholders, forced the bond holders to take a haircut, replaced management, and then relaunched re capitalized banks. The “right” people took the pain.

                    US, of course, just made management whole. it’s no accident, as the Marxist’s used to say, that the managers of some of these banks are billionaires. I have no problem with billionaires when they build a business, I do when they’re managers who’ve just extracted value from the shareholders. You could also look at Boeing for an example from outside finance.

                    There’s a big tranche of Evergrande bonds maturing on Thursday. I wish they’d get on with it, I hate the waiting. Once it breaks, one way or the other, I can act, but the waiting eats me up.

                    1. One possible difference between China and Japan’s crash that I didn’t see mentioned. How much of Japan’s real estate bubble included full-on fraud and shoddy workmanship? I wouldn’t be surprised if there had been some of that at the time. But back then I didn’t hear stories of things like building facades collapsing in Japan, as has been the case repeatedly in the PRC. When Japan’s bubble burst, there was still something there – albeit that something was worth considerably less than what people had believed it was worth. And because of that, the economy could eventually settle and stabilize. Owari Commercial Real Estate (to make up a translated Japanese company name at random) might not have been worth its projected value. But it did have holdings that had actual value. How much of China’s bubble has *any* value

                    2. True. The list is very long. There are a few very good companies in China but the CCP has decided to destroy them, there are a great many, huge, unprofitable, over leveraged zombie state enterprises that the CCP has decided to keep going because they are run by the generals, and then there is the mass of downright fraud.

                      Look for many, many arrests over the next few weeks as the CCP indulges in a purge of corrupt businessmen and local officials.

            3. I’m expecting an attempt at ‘re-unification’ with Taiwan any day now. Especially after Ficus Joe, the Resident of the US, just declared in the UN that we and China now seem to be BFFs.

      2. Answer: Everyone is naked, but not everyone knows it.

        The retail investors who thought they were buying something real, are going to be especially distressed to find they’ve been playing 3-card monte.

        I was shocked during the GME drama to learn that I don’t actually own the stocks I’ve bought. They’re just held “in trust”, and that trust is systematically violated at nearly every middleman.
        To say the financial market is a house of cards is an insult to the structural integrity of paper. At this point, the only things holding it up are inertia and faith.

        1. It’s “your” stocks they loan out to the short sellers. They keep the fee of course, and don’t get me started on the front-running. Still, the laws are there, they’re simply not enforced on members of the club.

          No one knows what will happen if people start taking money out of the passive index funds. It’s to the point where there is more ownership through funds than direct ownership of shares. if there’s a run, no-one knows what will happen.

          That said, the stock market is a paragon of virtue compared to some of what goes on in crypto. I get coin mining, I don’t believe in it, but I get it. the exchanges, though, seem to be the wild, Wild West and the rest is somehow paying very, very high yield backed by what purports to be cash and cash equivalents redeemable at will at par. NFW. Either they’ve lent it out to some really risky characters or it’s a ponzi straight up. Chinese junk bonds are yielding 14% today, best case, that’s what your buying; worst case, there’s nothing actually there. Someone who does it for a living might buy Chinese junk, especially if they’re playing with customer money, but to buy it thinking you’re in a money market. Wow, just wow. once someone breaks the buck in that it’ll be ugly.

          1. And every so often someone manages to steal some multi-millions worth of crypto, and I think… you got what you paid for…. none of this money ever seems to surface anywhere.

            Pole, ten feet, shunned.

              1. If ever any fell on my head, I would run, not walk, to the nearest way to cash it in… before it evaporates back into the aether from whence it came.

                So if it “can’t be traced, monitored, or controlled by governments” …. what makes anyone think it can be accurately traced, monitored, or controlled by its nominal owners??

                And it spends more electricity than most small countries to achieve… what? guessing a random number??

          2. “That said, the stock market is a paragon of virtue compared to some of what goes on in crypto.”

            When crypto first came on the scene, one of the major selling points was that it was “money” that couldn’t be traced, monitored, or controlled by governments, and so was ideal for avoiding taxes and laws regulating finance. Cheating, in other words. Did anyone think that was going to encourage honesty?

            What’s worse is that it was nonsense. When the crypto meets meatspace, there’s always something the taxman and the auditor can track. “And where did you say the income that paid for that Lamborghini came from again???”

      1. Now when I decided not to hit your tip jar recently because you had just said you weren’t in the mood to receive any, you praised my survival instinct. I’m getting mixed messages, here. 😛

  22. Out of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.

    I recently started trying a few different King Harv’s coffees. I’m lucky in that he’s local and has a setup at the farmer’s market that I go to on Saturdays anyway. There are so many to choose from! What are people’s favorites? Which ones should I try?

    1. Still new to King Harv myself but I’ve been pleased with the Saturn blend. I’m sticking to the low acidity types for now and plan to use more of this up before trying a new one. Earth, Mars, and Jupiter are on the list, though, and I might try Camel Spider at some point. I’m still not quite sure why I had stomach issues with coffee in the past, though, so that one may take a bit to try.

        1. Hm, curious. Not sure if that was the case for me in the past, especially the problems I had last year, but all seems to be well in that area now aside from the odd medicine or two causing nausea. It’s something I’ll make sure to have checked if things get worse, though.

  23. Glad you have an angle contractor for help. Keep the faith. You’ll get there. Get some rest, rejuvenation, with Dan and the cats. Most of all … Take. Care. of YOURSELF!

    2. No, Mouse Sanders is an entrepreneur in the fast-food restaurant business who specializes in poultry products for his fellow rodents.

      1. I would have bet that it was a mouse of democrat persuasion selling his buddies to the local Cat(s) in an effort to be the last one eaten…I think my kitties might like a little deep fried mouse.

          1. Being basically new here, I think I would need the democrat / cat / Soros analogy explained, please.

  25. Somewhere down the road, when the time of house turmoil is past and its memory fading, the Reader hopes this snippet becomes a story.

    In the mean time, the next time I ‘lose’ something and require my better half to find it, I may try the ‘it was time travelers’ excuse.

  26. Amazing!
    I’ve been trying to teleport things for some time. Now I have a mouse sander and a cup of coffee, long distance!

    1. If DNA from the author and a cat were to be mixed on the coffee cup, the time travelers might have issues if they make use of it.

      1. From anime etc., catgirls are a sought after commodity in the future!
        OTOH,

        “It’s many a light year I’ve travelled, Twelve parsecs and more,
        But Mormon tomcats with a great rack, I’ve never seen before….”

        Seven Drunken Nights in Space, The Next Generation

    2. There once was a mouse name of Sandy
      Who fit into limericks quite handy.
      He tried sonnets instead,
      And now he’s quite dead,
      Which isn’t to handy,
      For Sandy.

      2. $SPOUSE asked me what I was laughing about, so I read the limerick. She appreciated it. I think. 🙂

        FWIW, I think this should give you 5 units of carp-proofing for puns. Check with the keeper of the lanyard to be sure, though.

  29. Perhaps OT for the day, but 232 years ago on Sept 17, 1789, the US Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document they had created. Long live the Constitution.

  30. Ah, so it’s time travelers that whisk away whatever the thing I’m looking for is!

    At least they usually return it, but always to some other part of the house. It’s like the resolution on the targeting pod is pretty good but not perfect.

  31. So, he could not say no to a pretty woman. Neither can I. Sadly, pretty women find it quite easy to say no to me, even with my outstanding mouse sander.

  32. Given certain beliefs I believe you and I share, I reccomend not looking too closely into the identity of miraculous contractors until you have ample time for a mental breakdown. Just, you know, in case. I remember a story about a double flight of spiral stairs . . .

    1. Old guy leading a donkey. He refused payment and vanished after the work was done. The staircase had no center pole and according to experts, is impossible.
      Originally it had no rails, either, but those were added so the nuns could reach the choir loft more easily. The wood is not local, the owner of the local lumberyard didn’t supply it, and it was finally determined to be from species native to the Middle East. The old guy didn’t use nails, either.
      I’ve been in the church in Santa Fe and seen it. The place has been desanctified, but is still used for weddings and is a well-known attraction.
      And according to the story, the old guy appeared after the nuns prayed a novena…to St. Joseph, patron saint of carpenters.

  34. “The whole time was psychotic. That’s how we got the turmoils.”

    I hope you aren’t predicting the future with that line.

  35. Ha, that’s as good an explanation for the craziness as any I suppose! Glad that huge burden’s been lifted and that things are looking good for you! Me and the kitties are pulling for you as always and thanks for introducing me to King Harv, too! It’s nice to have coffee I can drink again to get the caffeine I need. And Earth blend, huh? I’ll have to bump that up the “to try” list once I finish up my Saturn blend, which I absolutely approve of and recommend! 🙂

  36. Well, wow. A post about a mouse gets immediately hijacked by minions of the handmaids of Satan. Imagine that! Personally, I have long believed in the washing machine theory of disappearing items.
    You see, before technology people washed their clothes by hand. They had few coffee cups and well, sanders hadn’t been invented yet. They never lost their socks. With the harness of electricity came a plethora of rotating equipment. the sander is actually a rotating motor that vibrates by turning an unbalanced disc.This leads to probably the largest spinning items in the household: the clothes washer and dryer. It has become obvious how insidious these machines really are. You see, the spinning drum creates an unstable static-electric charge. when conditions are just right, a micro-tear is created in space-time and small items such as socks or mittens are drawn into this void. They travel hyper-spatially, and are expelled in a different part of the universe: Probably Alpha Centauri, or up in Kansas maybe. This accounts for the missing items of Mrs. Hoyt quite neatly. You see, the unstable charge of the sander drew both it and the coffee through such a crack. They are likely to never be seen again. In some rare instances if a charge of reverse polarity occurs in the vicinity of the missing items, they might reappear. I’d rate that possible, but unlikely. When Hyperspace travel is finally worked out, I’d bet you it will feature a super-dense object spinning at high speed to provide the necessary propulsion.
    So as Fr. Occam put it, simplicity itself is the best explanation.
    That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
    Clear Ether

    1. So, yer sayin’ with a big enough spinner and better aim, in one swell foop Mrs. Hoyt coulda moved her entire household through the void from Colorado to Texas, or wherever she might desire? I think there’s a market for such a gadget….

      1. Yep, I allus say, build a better vibrating finish reducer, and the world will beat you at your door. oh, um, maybe not. But if we could reduce the size of the hyperspace jump mechanism to the size of a mouse sander, well it would simplify things a bit wouldn’t it?
        ALSO BONUS JOKES!!! There are some Easter Eggs in the above post. Identify them and the reference for extra credit!

            1. I’m surprised everything doesn’t wind up in West Texas because the wormholes run out of juice before they get halfway across. Seriously, that place is huge, and empty, and huge. And empty.

    2. IIRC Zaphod Beeblebrox got his fantastic fortune from knowing where the endpoint of the wormhole that began in all dryers and pants pockets was, and reselling all the socks and ballpoint pens that arrived there.

  39. I used to use a mouse sander (presumably a Black and Decker Mouse), but I was always disappointed with it. Then I discovered Bosch certified pre-owned. The manufacturer — noted as one of the best at making tools — takes in a used machine and refurbishes it, then sells it out again at a discount from new. I now have two of these — Bosch orbital hand sander. They use standard sheet sandpaper — which the user can tear in thirds and clamp onto the padded base. Great for finish sanding. ISTR they cost me under $30 each.

  40. I once ‘lost’ my key ring: Looked high and low for hours, finally gave up and stopped for lunch. Opened the fridge freezer door, and there are the keys. That’s either mischievous time travelers, ghosts, or a massive brain fart.
    Most likely the MBF.

    1. I’ve gotten obsessive about where I put my vehicle keys, phone, and glasses. Technically, the latter I’m suppose to wear to read, watch tv, drive, … or all the time. I don’t. Pretty much rarely wear in the house. “Let’s play find mom’s glasses”, “Call mom’s phone”, and “Retrace mom’s path through the house”, happens in our house. Doesn’t help when kittens pickup glasses or keys to haul either around … stupid cats.

      Would say it is something “newer” over the last 5 years ago … but no, poor kid was raised with this. Tried blaming it on mischievous pixies or poltergeists but he stopped believing that before he was 5.

  41. As Mark pointed out, a Mouse Sander is an actual thing, available on Amazon for about forty bucks. But that doesn’t explain the disappearance.

    I vaguely recall a Sci Fi story in which every second of the day is a separate set, constructed by a behind-the-scenes stage crew (angels, elves, don’t recall). Hero accidentally slips off the time-stream to see the construction activity and finally understands why sometimes a thing goes missing then suddenly returns – the continuity guy goofed and the item wasn’t included in the next second’s building plans. It gets included at some future stage when the item suddenly turns up under the sofa cushion that’s been searched eleven times already.

    I find that explanation strangely compelling.

  42. I have a strange fantasy to literally bet my life that some item or other is somewhere in the house, I just can’t find it. No supernatural creature has materialised to take that bet, and on reflection, I wouldn’t really offer it, even with complete confidence that the goblin or their friends hadn’t stolen the thing. But I might have given it away and forgotten that, like in Tregonsee’s calculator story.

    Today it’s long cross head screwdrivers. I have owned some, but they also break, so I could have run out. If anyone knows a less drastic charm to summon objects to you… there’s a scene in Harry Potter where he’s practising that and is standing inside a heap of successful attempts. I think I will try money; buying a new whatsit doesn’t always cause the missing one to reappear, but it works pretty well.

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