Of Mice and Friends.

Written at 4 a.m. last night.

The Pack n' Party, through surprisingly little fault of my own, proved to be the worst disaster of a social engagement I have ever, ever attended. Ever. And I was technically the host, so I think this may be some sort of sign. I don't know what it's a sign of, exactly, but it's either an indication that I should never leave Buford or I should turn my back on this horrid town as fast as I can and run, RUN to Atlanta.

I didn't know necessarily how to begin writing about it, and I realize "worst fucking party ever" is a bit juvenile. But there is, quite simply, no other way to put it. I've never before involved Kacoon in something so stressful and nerve-rattling that she had to indulge in more than one cigarette before. By the end of the party tonight, she'd had four of them, I think.

Kacoon called the evening one of the "classics," the sort of evening that only she and I would experience together. Me with my arsonist ex-boyfriends. Her with her freaky breakup stories involving dead prostitutes and stolen cars. While it was happening, it was on that level of bad. Our night's plans were so thoroughly thwarted, so ridiculously messed up beyond belief that she and I began calling our friends midway through it to say, "Oh my God, you're not going to BELIEVE what's happened!"

I suppose it all starts with Vic's ironic giant birthday cookie.

I was still at my office around 5:30 p.m., and the plans for the evening, that Vic, Kacoon and I would all get together to pack, drink, eat, watch videos and chat, were coming together. Kacoon said to me over that she'd show up around 8 and would call when she was within range of my apartment. Vic told me over the phone that she'd show up between 8 and 9 p.m.

So I ordered the cookie, complete with the "I Got You This Instead of A Gift" message that seemed so funny hours ago, and went to the mall to pick it up. Blake, that adorable Mormon high schooler who gazes and smiles at me and loiters in my store on his breaks from the cookie shop, told his manager that I was a mall employee and deserved a percentage off my purchase. I thanked him and told his manager that he was a keeper, for an employee, and she agreed with me.

(I didn't tell the manager about the time Blake, then a junior in high school, brought a girl friend, not a girlfriend, of his into my music section to chat me up and check me out, but I think of that every time I see him. I remember his girl friend giving the whole thing away after they were through perusing me, saying "Bye, Blake's Special Friend!" to me as they left the music department.)

I asked the cookie manager if everyone thought they were clever when they put out-of-sorts messages atop a dessert like hers, and she said she's received a lot of odd ones. I asked her the worst one, but she and Blake just sort of stared at each other and couldn't come up with a good one. I was surprised they couldn't. I imagined a giant cookie that said "I Want a Divorce" or "Thanks for the Herpes, Slut!" or something. When I asked the message question, Blake just looked cherubic for a moment and blushed.

Then I rushed to my apartment because my mother and stepfather were dropping off her leather couches for me at my apartment, and I needed to be there to receive them. As my stepfather carried in the couch, my neighbor, who parks his classic Ford in the damn front yard and installed a blue mosquito lamp in front of the house to provide himself with entertainment, decided to come out and witness the ruckus we were causing. The neighbor, holding a can of Busch Beer in his hand, would wait until my stepfather was carrying something away from him, and then he would start flirting with my mother. Seriously. Eventually, I had to shoo the neighbor out of the doorway.

At one point, my stepfather, who brought an extra man with him (and a four-year-old boy who I guess I'm sorta related to by marriage) to help move the furniture, picked up my old couch. An old issue of Playgirl, stripped of its cover by my co-workers at the bookstore and given to me, was underneath it. I'd forgotten, of course, that it was under there. Since it didn't have a cover on it, my mother and the four-year-old in the room didn't pay it any mind, and I was able to see it and kick it under a table without incident. Their entire visit was brief and decent. It was a welcome change.

So my mother and stepfather left. I put the giant cookie on top of the refrigerator in the kitchen. I had an hour to rest on the "new" couches before the girls showed up to "pack n' party." I loaded a DVD of "Sports Night" into the machine and watched it, leaving my cell phone in the other room.

After a bit, I hear a knock at the door. Kacoon, again looking cute, was there waiting for me.

"Why didn't you answer your phone?" she asked. "I called to tell you I was coming."

I looked at the phone. Two missed calls. One from Kacoon, the other I assumed from Vickye. It was 8:30.

I checked the messages as Kacoon settled herself down on the new love seat.

"It's not as big of a disaster as I was expecting," she said as she looked around the apartment, which I used to pay her to clean.

"What, the apartment or the new furniture?" I asked her.

"The apartment, of course," she said.

"Mom came over and help me clean it up this weekend," I said, for Kacoon knows that I don't really clean up after myself. "We're supposed to get it to the next step today."

"What time is Vickye showing up?" she asked me.

"She said between 8 and 9," I said. "What do you want to do until she gets here? Let's wait to order the pizza."

:"I have no idea what to do," Kacoon said. Neither of us was eager to start packing.

"Ooh, there's a dirty magazine I kicked under the table there," I said.

"Really?" she asked me. "Where is it?"

We moved some furniture, uncovered the issue of Playgirl. Kacoon immediately began critiquing the centerfold models.

"Ugh, no one in here is good looking," she said. "Who is the editor of this? I doubt it's a woman because no woman would ever think these men were sexy."

The editor was indeed a woman, so Kacoon scoffed and instead began reading some of the Playgirl "articles."

"Buck polished his instrument as lovingly as he would the hood of a '57 Chevy, thinking about Charla and what it would be like to 'lift her hood,'" she read.

I laughed.

I located another stripped issue of the magazine under my bed, one that I had remembered I owned, and Kacoon and I spent about 15 minutes doing dramatic readings from the Playgirl testimonials. We then threw the issues in the garbage and returned to wondering where the hell Vic was.

I called Vic's cell phone. No answer.

I checked the messages on my phone. Nothing from Vic, just a call from my mom wondering if the vulture-like neighbors had gathered up my old couch and chair from where we'd left them near the street.

I left a message on Vic's cell phone, telling her that Kacoon and I were already at the apartment. I didn't mention the giant cookie.

We waited five more minutes. I called Vic's mother's house to see if she was there and just didn't have her cell phone on her.

"She just left," her mother said over the phone.

Then, her mother indicated that Vic wasn't on her way to my apartment, as she'd told me she was going to do. No, Vic was driiving her ex-husband back to his house, located about 25 minutes in the other direction.

"Oh," I said, my voice working in clipped tones, trying not to sound annoyed. Kacoon watched me, waiting.

Then, Vic's mother asked me if we'd had some kind of plans.

"Yes," I said.

"Have you tried her cell phone?" she asked me.

"Yes."

"Well, I'm sure she'll call you," Vic's mother said.

"Uh huh," I said. "She told me she was coming here, though, so I decided to do something for her birthday. I got her a giant cookie with writing on it because I know she doesn't like gifts."

"That sounds nice," her mother said. We exchanged goodbyes.

Kacoon tried to read the look upon my face but couldn't.

"What is it?" Kacoon said. "Where is she?"

"Oh, she's driving her ex-husband back to Clermont," I said. "It's about 45 minutes away from here."

"Why?" Kacoon asked.

"Because she feels like she has to," I said. "Maybe she feels guilty."

"And she's not going to call you?" Kacoon asked.

"Maybe not," I said matter-of-factly. "Not while he's nearby, anyway."

"Why wouldn't she call you and tell you that she's going to be late?" Kacoon asked. "Or why wouldn't she tell him that she already had plans and that he should get a cab?"

"Because she thinks I'll understand," I said, my tone of voice divorced from any feeling. "It's easier for her to disappoint me than him. She thinks I'll understand."

I called Vic again, leaving her another message but not letting her know that I knew what was keeping her. When I told Vic's voice mail that I hoped she was safe, Kacoon said that I was laying on a guilt trip thick.

I ordered the pizza.

Dejected and feeling as though I'd left way too many messages on Vic's voice mail to preserve the element of subtlety, I told Kacoon to follow me into the kitchen. I pulled down the giant birthday cookie and opened the lid, showing Kacoon the frosted message. Instead of "I Got You This Instead of a Gift," I felt like she and I should change the message to something like "Happy Birthday, Unreliable Bitch."

That was the bad joke I was going to make to Kacoon, but I didn't get the chance to say it. I was about to do it, but something odd happened in the kitchen.

I heard a scratching behind some boxes, then I saw something move really quick out of the corner of my eye on to the windowsill. I saw a gray tail.

I'm moving out of the apartment in one week, and I had never seen an actual rodent in my usually squalor-filled kitchen before. Now, two days after my mother cleaned the kitchen - and on the rare damn occasion that I was supposed to have guests over, there were vermin scurrying in the corner of my window.

I couldn’t tell if they were on the way out or just hiding.

I looked at Kacoon and stated plainly, "Get out of the kitchen now."

"What is it?" Kacoon said.

"Just get out of the kitchen."

Damn it, I thought. Kacoon is never going to want to come over ever again, no matter where I live or where I move. I'll always be the Guy Who Had Mice At the Spontaneous Three-Person Surprise Birthday Pack N' Party That the Guest of Honor Didn’t Attend.

I thought it was mice. It might have been rats, I thought. I'm unlucky … and I saw something gray … so they're probably rats. I'm moving in a week. What should I do about this?

I grabbed wasp spray. I lined the windowsills with it. Nothing moved. I sprayed the counter, where the cereal was. That seemed to be where the original noises were coming from.

Kacoon worked her way back inside the room, and she saw the can of bug spray.

"What was it?"

"It was a mouse or maybe a rat," I said.

"Why are you using bug spray?" she asked me.

"I have no idea," I said. :"I'm trying to get it to move."

My mother used blue morsels of poison to kill mice who invaded our old house. I didn't know where any blue morsels of poison were.

"We got cats when my family had mice in Colorado," said Kacoon helpfully. "Do any of your neighbors have a cat?"

"I'm allergic to cats," I said.

"You too?" she said. "I'm really allergic to cats. But that's what we always used whenever we had mice."

I ran out into the lobby to see if I could track down Busch Beer Guy. I thought he might've picked up that stray black cat I've seen around lately. I mean, Busch Beer Guy parks his car on the sidewalk despite warnings, so he probably doesn't give a damn about the apartment pet policy, either

Busch Beer Guy's front door was wide open, but I couldn't get any response from him. And I didn't see or smell a cat, so I came back inside my own apartment.

"Please don't brand me a bad housekeeper because of this," I said to Kacoon. "I mean, you know I'm a bad housekeeper, but I've never had a mouse here before."

"Benjie, didn't you just hear what I told you about Colorado?" she said. "Everyone gets mice. I mean, your apartment has faulty windows, and it's on the ground floor near a wooded area. Of course you're going to get mice. Just be glad you're leaving in a week."

Determined to solve the problem with the mice, I picked up a broom and went toward the counter.

"What should we do?" I asked.

"I don't know," Kacoon said. "Maybe we should just pack in the other room."

I called my mother, who told me to get a cat. So I said good night to her and hung up.

I saw a tiny mouse poke its head out from behind a Nigella Lawson cookbook on the counter. Shivers rushed down my spine, and I screamed like a big-breasted virgin in a horror movie. Kacoon, who probably would've chastised me with tidings of bad karma if I'd actually attempted to harm the mouse, climbed on a chair and kept her balance by holding on to the door frame.

"You look like a '50s housewife," I told Kacoon, even though I was the one who screamed. Then, I reminded her of the time we saw "Willard."

I started singing the first lyric of "Ben," which Kacoon told me wasn't at all funny. Then, she gasped. A mouse had stuck its head out at her, somewhere between the boxes of Crispix and Rice Krispies.

Unsure of what to do, I went toward the counter with a broom to find the hiding mice and scare them. Scare them. Make them run. Make them run outside.

For some reason, I began to channel Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING.

I swear to God, I said something like this, "MOUSEY!!!!!!!! MOUSEY, COME OUT AND PLAY!!!! WE'RE MAMMALS, TOO, AND WE DON’T' WANT TO HURT YOU … MUCH!!!!!"

I knocked the unopened tins of Jiffy Pop off the counter with the broom handle. Kacoon flinched atop her perch, but nothing moved. I poked at a can of corn.

"MOUSEY!!!!!!!! EVERYTHING WILL BE ALL RIGHT!!!! YOU WANT THIS CAN OF NIBLETS, MOUSEY??? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?"

When I began the taunt of the Niblets, Kacoon started laughing, telling me that it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard me say. On top of her chair, she told me that they were hiding behind a can. But I moved the can with the broomstick, and they weren't there. I moved the sugar, but there were no mouse. It seemed weird to me that a space so small on the countertop could provide rodents with so many hiding places. It seemed neat for a moment. Then I remembered that the vermin were fast and creepy, and it stopped being neat. At Kacoon's urging, I poked the cereal boxes, and nothing happened.

"What if they're demon mice?" I said to Kacoon. "What if we're in an old episode of 'Tales from the Crypt?'"

"If we're really in a Stephen King story," Kacoon said. "I think we should call him right now, and tell him to change the story to a comedy."

The tattooed, punk rock feminist was standing in a chair, and I, the gay cripple, was singing songs while antagonizing stealth mice with a broomstick. And we were the only guests at someone else's surprise party. It seemed like a comedy to me.

"Benjie, I want you to know, if a mouse comes flying off the counter and starts biting you in the neck, I AM SO OUT OF HERE," Kacoon said. "I love you, and I would call the paramedics on my cell phone as I went home. But, if it comes at your jugular, I'm telling you that I'm gone."

The counter was nearly clear, and there were no signs of the mice. I noticed the small sack of flour on the counter had a hole in its top. So I poked it.

And a fucking mouse came flying out of the damn sack. I mean, flying. Kacoon and I both screamed bloody murder, and the mouse did this Cirque du Soleil routine down the back of the counter, jumping off its edge and landing squarely on the floor. Then, it scurried into the corner.

"Well, that's that," I said.

And another fucking mouse jumps out of the sack of flour. And Kacoon and I screamed again, her firmly up in her chair. And it jumps off the other side of the counter, then runs under the counter and toward the same apparent yet unseen mouse hole in the corner.

After some investigation and some poking into the corner I couldn't reach, Kacoon climbed down from the chair, saying we probably scared the bejeezus out of the mice with all the noise and the poking and prodding at them.

"I am NEVER going in that kitchen again," Kacoon proclaimed.

She grabbed her own phone, called Vic again and said, "I hope you're still coming, Vickye. Oh, and if you could, stop at the store and bring mousetraps!!!"

Kacoon then called her husband, telling his voice mail (because he wasn't answering) that he wouldn't believe the night we were having.

It was 10 p.m. Nothing had been packed, and nothing was going to be. Our nerves were shot, so I did the best thing I could think of and called Kacoon's mother Kathy on my cell phone.

"I need your help," I told my friend's mother. "This is the worst party I've ever hosted. My friend Vickye didn't show up to her own surprise birthday thing, but mice did. And I got a giant cookie with an ironic message, but she's not here to read it!"

"Who did you call?" Kacoon asked me, looking puzzled. Then, she looked out the window. "The pizza guy's here."

I handed her my cell phone and said, "It's your mother."

"You called my mother?" Kacoon asked. "MY mother? Did you wake her up?"

"I don't think so," I said and then reconsidered. "I hope not."

I went to the door and got the pizzas while Kacoon talked to her mother about our party night from hell. She was bidding her mother goodnight when I returned with the pizzas, one of which was a flavor specifically picked in the hopes that Vic would show up.

"I want to talk to her, I want to talk to her," I said, sounding about five years old. Kacoon handed me the phone.

It turns out that Kathy had, in fact, dozed off while watching TV, but it had just been for a moment. So I don't think I technically woke her up, at least not in the traditional sense.

I asked her what we should do about Vic, and Kathy said we should do something really cruel, like call up Vic's voice mail again and sing "Happy Birthday," then say at the end, "Wish you were here!"

But we didn't. I don't know how many times we called Vic or how many different stunts and requests we left on her voice mail. She never called back. She never found out about her giant cookie.

So we ate a couple slices of pizza, lounged on the comfy new couches and called everyone else we knew who would find the story amusing.

Then Kacoon and I watched a DVD, and she headed home about 11:30.

On her way out of the apartment, she looked back at me and said, "Have fun in your apartment tonight … with your new little friends."

I threw out the flour. I cleared the counter. The leftover pizza is elevated, as is the untouched, giant ironic birthday cookie. There's still lots of packing to do, but, God and mice willing, it'll get done.

However my plans get mucked up, and I'm sure they will, I am leaving my hometown in less than a week.

And if I'm looking for a sign from the mice, maybe I should avoid any thoughts of Steinbeck. Maybe some country mice knew that I was moving to the city and stopped by to say goodbye, in their own way.