My rule is that I don't have to empty the mousetrap until I finish my coffee, so I decide to have a second cup and read the rest of the morning paper, which may or may not be such a good idea.  The whole financial crisis drama is beginning to remind me of the violence in a Coen Brothers movie... there's so much of it, it's so extreme and absurd that it just doesn't seem real.  The Dow tanks, yet here I am, safe beneath my very own still non-leaking roof, still warm and entirely too well-fed, with a full cup of coffee in my hand and a dead mouse in my kitchen.

I know I should put poison out in the basement.  Getting rid of the creatures this way, one little rodent at a time, is the mouse murder equivalent of nickel-and-diming the situation.  But I hate finding long-dead mice in the washer drain or under the laundry rug.  And I only have one trap, though I do realize that I could buy more.  As I continue to peruse the morning paper (with that second cup of coffee), I noted several local emporia advertising specials on weapons of mouse destruction, so I'm betting I'm not alone in experiencing this seasonal invasion of four-footed furries.

Of course, they come in to get warm.  Who can blame them?  Concurrent with the yearly arrival of the mice is the great annual dust descent, i.e. I tuned on my furnace.  My heating system, ostensibly forced air, is, in reality, a forced dust system.

You won't believe it but I change the filter once a month, and I've been known to clean now and again.  But Swiffer as I might, I could write this column on the surfaces of my furniture.  I have museum-quality dust circulating in my house.  This is dust with a pedigree.  I could donate this dust to the Smithsonian.  My house was built in 1923, and I'm convinced that what I have here is original, 85-year-old dust.  It's the same dust that was in my living room last fall.  I recognize it.

The dust-colored mouse waiting quietly in the kitchen to be disposed of is, of course, not any of the mice I caught last year.  Nor is it the mouse I caught yesterday, or the one I caught last Saturday.  This is a new dead mouse, the fifth this fall.  They keep coming.  I don't understand why the mice don't figure it out.

Think about it.  If your relatives were disappearing one by one, wouldn't you be suspicious that something was up?  Don't these mice get the message?

"Alright, now, let's call this mouse meeting to order," I imagine the family organizer saying.  "You all know Fred left home Wednesday night and hasn't been seen since.  Then Dad disappeared... said he was just going out for crumbs and he'd be right back.  And now Gladys is missing.  Guys, this is one tough neighborhood.  I vote we relocate."

I haven't caught any mice (or seen any mouse evidence) for more than a week now.  The dust, however, is still with me.  Unlike my fantasy mice, it isn't going anywhere, which is OK.  I've come to think of this vintage dust as part of the estate I will leave my heirs.  And given the current state of my so-called investments, it may end up being more valuable.