When I was first married we lived in a run down summer house on Star Lake in Federal Way.

As we entered the house one day I saw a large furry critter run across the floor into the bathroom.

I ran ahead of my bride, who had not seen it, and fearlessly confronted the beast who was glowering at me from behind the toilet. I had closed the door but yelled at my wife to bring me the axe as I was trying to catch a mouse.

She, of course, asked why I wanted an axe to catch a mouse.

"Don't argue, and don't come in. Just pass it to me and stay out," I yelled.

She found the axe and slid it through the door, and I tried jabbing at the animal with the handle, but he just snarled and then ran right up the plunger handle behind the toilet. His red beady eyes gave away his plans.

He was preparing to leap at me, so I swung the axe blade at him, missed badly, and slashed a deep gash in the plasterboard. He took offense at my offensive tactics, leaping off his perch and racing around the room. He lept into the bath tub, where he found a secure hiding place under a pile of dirty clothes.

He couldn't fool me, though. I knew he was there so I just started whacking at the pile hoping to score a decisive blow by chance. This made an awful racket and I could hear my wife shouting, "What are you doing in there? Why are you chopping up the bath tub?"

I didn't bother to answer her but kept pounding the porcelain till I was satisfied it was safe to look under the tattered debris I had once worn.

When I discovered his ugly remains I yelled for her to bring me a shovel.
She naturally asked why I wanted a shovel, and I was not about to get into a debate on the subject, so I just gritted my teeth till she handed me a trowel.

I didn't argue the merits of garden tools, just slid the hand tool under a very big but dead hunk of vermin and marched past her on my way out the front door.

She turned white and gasped. Too terrified to talk.

I said a few words at his funeral in the backyard. I don't want to repeat them.

I drove by the short dead end road to that house off 272nd the other day only to discover that somebody had stolen it. The house simply was not where it was when we left it. You just can't trust anybody these days.

It was pretty attractive. On today's market it would sell for easily 500,000 bucks.We rented it for 15 bucks a month. It had a whole front room with knotty pine paneling, a field stone fireplace and a quaint wooden floor that had a clever slant to it so that the rain water coming through the shingle roof would just run outside harmlessly when you opened the front door.

It had one bedroom which was enough but pretty small. When you closed the door, the knob got in bed with you.

The kitchen had a huge wood burning stove. It was used to cook, heat water in the coils in the firebox and also heat the house summer or winter. There was a porcelain sink but no granite counter. Just a linoleum surfaced plywood cabinet.

The house was meant to be used in July and August only. How we were to know that? The knotty pine had dazzled us.

It was not there but in its place was a modern three bedroom cottage. I wanted to knock on the door and ask if they had knotty pine, but instead I looked around for the well that was there when we occupied the place. Alas, that was gone also. How could anyone steal a well?

That was really disappointing. I had caught a small rainbow trout in the lake one day and put him the well to fatten him up. He would have been really a tackle buster by now.