Come and get me, PETA! Bring it on, ALF!!

Preface: I've been living with my host family for about three weeks now, and I haven't slept through the night yet.

I'm horribly allergic to something in my room, so until I discovered a stockpile of generic Claritin in my suitcase, I woke up wheezing and snotting and blew my nose 'til it bled. That, or the neighbors watched TV so loud that I could hear the characters breathing, or people played drums all night long because Cameroon won the soccer game--c'est l'Afrique! The noise issue is now under control with a variety of loud fan/iPod/ear plugs.

Just when I finally got those issues under control, a mouse moved in under my bed.

Incidentally, it lives in a crocodile skin that my family stores under my bed. (Yes, this freaks me the hell out.)

Mice are small, but when they live under one's bed, one realizes that they make a shit ton of noise. So this freakin' mouse woke me up many nights in a row.

My host brother tried to kill it, but apparently this particular mouse is immune to poison.

Yesterday, I killed that motherfuckin' mouse with my own hands.

I stepped out onto my balcony and discovered the mouse just chillin' on the railing, not a care in the world, least of all my fatigue.

So I picked it up, held it in my fist and shouted at it, Thanks a lot for keeping me up all night, you fucking motherfucker!

Out of sheer spite, swinging it by the tail, I bashed it against the wall.

Well, no, not quite. I very seriously considered doing so, but it occurred to me that the mouse could have rabies or the plague, either of which would be fairly bad news.

I did, however, whack the fucker off the railing and watch gleefully as it fell two stories to its death.

Tonight--unless the crocodile springs to life, I suppose--I may just sleep through the night.