But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
– From “To a Mouse,” by Robert Burns
On the morning of my 54th birthday, I found a dead mouse underneath my birdfeeder. Besides being dead, the mouse looked fine. Who or what caused its death? Our cats stay indoors. There were no signs of meteor impact where I found the body.
Not a meteor. Not a cat.
On the morning of my 54th birthday, after tossing the dead mouse into the woods, those powers that curse birthdays conspired to take me by the tail and give me a good shake — and another, and another, and another!
***
I am in a park in Brunswick and have just completed a nice Sunday morning walk on a beautiful June day. Let’s not get into my car just yet, because when we do, that’s when the shaking will start and it will last for the rest of the day. Let’s just enjoy the sun and blue sky and appreciate all I have to be thankful for on my birthday. Ahh.
OK, hold on tight!
Instead of hearing my car’s engine rev to life when I push the start button, all I hear is clickety clackety click.
On my birthday, I had to call for roadside assistance.
(Shake!)
When I reach an agent, he says the most inexplicable thing you can say to someone who needs roadside assistance on his birthday.
“I’m sorry, but your policy does not exist in our system. I can’t help you.”
(Shake!)
Abandoned by roadside assistance, I call many towing businesses and listen to many voice recordings until I finally find a tow driver who can help me. Tom says he will be able to “swing by in about 10 hours” on his way back from New Hampshire.
(Shake!)
And then events unfold quickly:
Tom tells me he doesn’t need me to be there to tow my car to a garage.
My daughter picks me up and brings me home and then leaves to go clothes shopping with her sisters.
My wife is at work but will enter our story when we get to the cyclops scene.
Home all alone and without any mode of transportation, I have time to wonder how the mouse died, why my car did not start, and why, on a Sunday morning, a roadside assistance company had forsaken me.
I am only able to draw the skimpiest of conclusions when all the lights in the house flicker on and off and on and then, permanently, off.
On my birthday — a beautiful, sunny day — I lose power.
(Shake!)
Later that afternoon, with the hum of a generator in the background, I sit in my rocking chair and determine the poor mousie had succumbed because it had ventured upon cursed ground — cursed birthday ground.
Before I can extrapolate the practice of occult arts to all my other woes, Allison calls me into the kitchen.
“The oven light won’t turn off,” she says.
(Shake!)
“I know why the mouse died,” I say as I open the oven door and peek in.
From the far corner, a horrible cycloptic eye glows and scowls defiantly back at me, its harsh, accusatory light setting my face ablaze.
I recoil in fright and tell Allison I will not be able to fix anything until my birthday is over.
As dusk falls on my birthday, a towing company charges my credit card $175.
(Shake!)
As dusk turns to evening on my birthday, I complain of a sore throat and feel deep from within the coming arrival of a debilitating fatigue that will turn into a bad summer cold the next day.
(Shake!)
On my birthday, I blow out all the candles and make a birthday wish.
I wish for my birthday, my special day, to come to an end, so all the shaking will stop.
