Fred

I wake up. Sluggishly I make my way to the bathroom, then back up the hallway, past my bedroom, to the kitchen. I put on the kettle and slump my way back to my bedroom, get dressed and ready for the day. The kettle sings. I hurry back into the kitchen and make myself a cup of tea. Its good tea, the loose leaf stuff my mum got me for christmas. I sit drinking my tea, daydreaming still not fully awake. Something, perhaps a little scurrying noise or a little blur of gray directs my attention away from my dreams. 

Sitting in the middle of the kitchen boldly sits a little gray mouse cleaning its whiskers. He does not seem to realize that I am there. In fact he seems to be oblivious to everything around him. Part of me is wondering where the cat is. She has killed a mouse before in the house, so poor thing she had dragged inside to play with. But its winter now, so this mouse must have found his own way in. Another part of me is thinking about the trap I have somewhere in my room, which I should relocate to the kitchen. Since I know we have mice now, I should be proactive in getting rid of the little buggers. But I do not act. Rather I watch. 

I'm not sure how it started, but at some point in my youth I started naming things. The most common names were Fred and Bob. Fred the spider, who lived in my room. Bob the squirrel that the dog had chased up a tree. Fred was probably the most common name. Of course naming things evolved from Fred and Bob, to Salt and Pepper and Sir Gregory the Brave. Salt and Pepper, or just Pepper, was my first cat. A vary handsome, rather snotty black and white tux cat, whom I loved.  Sir Gregory the Brave is the full name of my parents cat that my brother and I found/saved from our barn. Everyone calls him Greg. He is the second black and white cat to have a home at my parents house (I moved to Philly shortly after he was found/adopted). 

I still name spiders. My roommates, who are terrified of bugs, always want me to kill some spider or whatever crawling thing has decided to make a home in our apartment. I don't mind spiders. I talk to them as I transfer them outside. For some reason they are all named Fred. And there is a possum that lives in the back lot between my row of buildings and the row who's back is to our back. I named him nel the possum. And there is a long haired gray cat named Big Gray, who likes to flirt with our cat and bask himself on our back patio. 

So as I'm watching the mouse, obliviously clean itself in the middle of our kitchen. I'm wondering what I want to call it. Bob would work or Miss Gray. But I decide, since I know I will need to try and kill it, that I should not get too attached. So Fred it is. The name shared by all the spiders that eventually end up getting a trip outside in a glass jar. Or the many poor ones who aren't so lucky and end up very flat. If mice didn't carry scary deceases I doubt I would be so mean. 

The mouse scurries off. Perhaps it finally realized I was watching, or perhaps I had moved to obviously. I finish drinking my wonderful cup of tea. Then I get the trap from my bedroom, the one I have named the jaws of death, because that is exactly what it looks like. I smear some peanut butter in the middle of the trap and place it where I suspect the mouse would go for it. If Jaws and Fred could have any sort of conversation, this is how I think it would go...

Fred: Wow peanut butter.

Jaws: Yep thats right, come right over and get some...

Fred: I don't know, my mom always told me to not trust big black teeth.

Jaws: Oh come on Mister Mouse, what's the worst that can happen...

Of course the real question is whether Fred will fall for it or not.