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| Jack and Eliza, Fall 2011 |
I’d heard stories of mouse sightings in various areas, but most of my friends who had seen rodents in or near their homes lived in one of two places: New York City (rats) or Utah (mice). I don’t know if the South is more rodent-free than other parts of the country, or if I was just lucky to never encounter a rat or mouse in the 20+ years I lived there? Either way, I suppose I couldn’t expect my blissful mouse-free life to continue forever. When I moved to Utah for the first time, I made sure to keep the possibility of a mouse sighting somewhere between the forefront and the back of my mind. I didn’t want to dwell on it and walk around with a broom ready-for-the-swat, but I didn’t want to forget about it either.
I started my day on Oct. 10th, 2011 the way I would start any day. I woke up, got myself ready, took care of the kids, took my 1st grader to school, and came home. I gathered a load of laundry and walked down to the basement to get the washing machine started. Jack and Eliza, ages 3 and 1 respectively, were happily occupied in the playroom, which is next to the laundry room.
I loaded the washing machine and saw something that looked like a tail out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t think anything of it at first, because my son had been playing with plastic dinosaur figures the week before. I was sure it was one of those. But something made me want to look, just to make sure. After all, we should always double check that anything which possesses a tail and is lying on our floor is, indeed, plastic. So I finished taking care of the laundry, turned my body and allowed my gaze to fall on the dinosaur, just to make sure. Just to make sure.
As I looked at the being in possession of said tail, my eyes grew 17 times bigger and my heart started pounding out of my chest.
It wasn’t a dinosaur. It was, in fact, a mouse. Or, to be more specific, a mouse corpse.
In situations such as these, I sometimes find that the best course of action is to take no action at all. So I slowly backed out of the laundry room, keeping an eye on the dead mouse so as to be sure that he didn’t come back to life during my retreat. I closed the door, and looked in on the playroom to confirm that my mischief-making toddlers were not actively making mischief before going upstairs to get my phone and call my husband. He’d never had to dispose of a dead mouse, that I knew of, but of course, he still knew what to do better than I did. Husbands are handy that way. How do I pick it up? Does it need to be double-bagged? I’m sure it’s too big to be flushed, so does that mean that the trash can is the appropriate resting place? Or does the little rodent deserve a proper Christian burial? For all I knew, the mouse was protecting our beloved laundry room from those bad gansta-type rodents you hear about on the news sometimes. He might have died a martyr’s death, defending our family! What is the appropriate course of action??
No answer from my husband. But he texted me right away. “Class is about to start. What’s up?”
“Dead mouse in the laundry room. What do I do?”
“Scream! Then wrap him up in a paper towel and throw him in the trash outside.”
“I didn’t scream. You’d be proud. Are you sure I can’t just leave him there until you get home?”
“That is fine.”
I walked downstairs, armed with a few plastic grocery bags, determined to “dispose” of the mouse and make myself and my husband proud. But something was off when I went downstairs. There was no sign of my mischief-making toddlers. No toy-related noises. No giggles. No screaming or fighting or crying. (Thank goodness for that!) No walking, running, scampering, or skipping. Not even any breathing sounds. Where are they? They didn’t walk upstairs; I would have seen them. Did they go outside? Or are they hiding? Surely they’re not....
Oh. Of course they were. I opened the laundry room door, and there they were. To the best of my recollection, they had never before, and have never since, gone into the laundry room “just because” and I don’t know what would have enticed them in there on this particular day. I hadn’t screamed. I hadn’t said anything to them or brought attention to myself in any way. Did I sneak out so quietly in an attempt not to alert them that they thought I was still in there, and they entered the room in pursuit of me? Who knows. But they were, indeed, in the one place I needed to keep them away from that morning.
I quickly searched for the mouse in the corner where he had been peacefully resting just moments before. PLEASE be there. PLEASE tell me that the kids didn’t notice the mouse. PLEASE tell me that we aren’t going to all die from rabies. Do mice even contract rabies? And are they still contagious after they die? Will we have to be hospitalized, or can it be taken care of with a few shots? Should we have a fun run to raise money for rabies awareness? Wait. Back to the search for the mouse - because he wasn’t there. He wasn’t in what he thought was his final resting place. Because we all know that his actual final resting place was to be in the local landfill.
Of course he wasn’t still lying prostrate on the linoleum. Why would I even think he was? Had I forgotten so quickly who else had been in the room since I escaped to go upstairs? So. He wasn’t where I left him, er, I should say, where he had left himself. Where was he?
Perhaps at this point in the story I should pause to let you know that when I describe my children as mischief-making, it may come across as critical. I don’t intend to be. They are particularly good at getting into things - the candy stash we “hide” on the top shelf in the kitchen, bottles of spices, Vicks Vap-O-Rub, toilet paper, my jewelry, and spare change, just to name a few. But I honestly don’t think that they intend to make trouble with every waking breath. They just happen to be active. And smart. And curious. It was the curious part that got them into trouble on this day.
After standing in the laundry room with my jaw down to my belly button for an hour, or perhaps half a second, I noticed that my sweet pink-cheeked blonde-haired one year old daughter had a tiny little critter clutched in her hands. At which point my brown-eyed son excitedly explained, “We found a mouse!”
Then, I screamed. Kind of a lot.
And my baby cried.
I bagged up the mouse, washed my kids’ hands 700 times (of course I only saw one child holding the mouse but perhaps they’d been playing hot potato with the poor thing before I walked in - who knows?!?), disinfected the entire laundry room floor, and texted my husband.
“Don’t worry. By the time I walked back down to the laundry room, J & E had found the mouse. E was holding it. Then I screamed. And that made E cry. Mouse is now bagged up and waiting to be buried in trash.”
I immediately received the perfect reply. “Never a dull moment.”
Indeed.
Now I keep some extra plastic bags in the laundry room. Because next time - and hopefully there will never be one - I will be prepared.
Motherhood Lesson #432: Dispose of it Immediately.
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| Jack and Eliza, Fall 2011 |
Love it! I laughed and laughed. It is funny NOW. Love you lots! What a way with words!!
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