This afternoon the children were playing outside, and the dogs were lounging outside whilst I tidied up the kitchen and listened to some NPR, when suddenly Ava appeared at the window. I heard her say "Blah blah blah mouse, Mommy!". In order to get the full details, not just the "Blah blah blah", I opened the door. Whereupon Belly attempts to enter the house with SAID MOUSE IN HER MOUTH!!!! Not surprisingly, I begin to shriek the loudest shriek ever, and slam the door. Immediately I am unhappy about this as the three people are outside, and the dead mouse and the phone are inside. I try for about 10 minutes to get Belly to come back and take it outside, to no avail. The shrieking really freaked her out, and she was under the bed for good. Fred appeared mildly interested, but upon discovering the poor thing was dead decided he had better things to do, like chew random twigs that appear in our yard. There was only one thing left to do: Call PJ.
Unfortunately, the phone was inside, and the front door and gate were locked, and of course the keys were inside too. I had to go in. I stepped over the mouse, which is actually a ground squirrel, and got on the horn with the husband. I let him know in no uncertain terms that his dog had brought a dead ground squirrel into the house and was not prepared to remove it, and that brought a major downer to my day. His first question: where are the children? My response: THERE IS A DEAD GROUND SQUIRREL IN THE KITCHEN !!!!! I calmed down slightly and let him know that despite his encouragement, I was not prepared to remove it. I had tried to get it onto a shovel, but it was not going to happen that way. It was next suggested that I use a plastic grocery bag and pick it up like we do the dog presents in the back yard, to which I think I replied "Ewwww!" and then he said something that I will not repeat as it wasn't that bad but to which I went off for about 3 whole minutes before calming down. He informed me that he was going to stay on the phone with me until I completed the task, and we would "do it together", although doing it together would have been better for me if I were on the other end of the phone and he were the one touching the dead ground squirrel.
I gathered some tools, like a broom, dustpan, shovel, whisk broom, paper grocery bag, and plastic grocery bag. He talked me through phase one, which is putting the bag over the corpse. Then, he instructed me to slide the paper bag under it so as to be able to flip it into the plastic bag. I squealed loudly, completely disregarding the possible hearing loss, to which Ava remarked from outside, "Geez, Mom, it's already dead!". PJ loved that one. After the big squeal I was able to get the poor thing into the bag and remove it from the house. I brought the children in to nap (which will be over soon at least for Ava as there is a construction crew in front of our house right now which also stinks since she was up at 4:30 this morning and again at 6:45) and am reporting the information to you, the blogosphere.
Now if you will excuse me I have to go round up some holy water and a smudge stick. You do not want to see us on the Discovery Channel anytime soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment