the mouse on Bourbon Street

New Orleans, LA., 2000. Enjoying tasty fried oysters in the French Quarter at a less-than-four-star establishment, while a mouse scurries across the floor along the restaurant's rear wall. Customers--bourbon-sipping lawyers on lunchbreaks, college-kid tourists, seafood lovers of every stripe, Nicole and I--remain oblivious to the mouse, sipping beers and raw oysters, talking over jazz licks and noisy strangers, happy in the big easy. Nicole in the restaurant's ladies room, startled by either the same mouse or one of his friends, jumps, bumping into a stall door. Woman in the stall, opens the door, sees Nicole but not the mouse, looks Nicole up and down and says: "I'm not interested." God bless New Orleans.