Stories from the Land of Diana, #3

The Surprise Under My Sandal

I have personally, using my hands and various other tools [shoes, cups, CD cases, trash bags], caught 6 mice in my lifetime. Three of those have been within the last few weeks. The most recent is by far my most colourful and traumatizing of all.

Lauren and I had arrived back at her house after the Bored Police Man incident, and we each quickly repaired to our respective computers to get in some internet socializing before bed. Mrs. Bourcier, who was on her computer as well, decided to make some hot tea for all three of us.

Yes, hot tea in the middle of the summer in Texas. Well, when you factor in air conditioning, it’s not that hard to fathom.

Anyways, how did I get on to hot tea? The pleasures of hot tea in a cold house during the summer in Texas have nothing to do with my story…oh yeah, now I remember.

My tea was done brewing, and I casually walked across the kitchen to dispose of the tea bag. The Bourcier’s have one of those trash cans that pull out from under the kitchen counter, and as I pulled it out I heard a slight but distinct crunch under my right foot that I had just moved to make way for the trash.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“I just stepped on so…ah! It’s a mouse!”

I looked down to see a large mouse lying on its side. The side facing up was rather flat.

[contrary to what you may imagine, I was rather calm at this point, dazed by what I saw]

“A what?”

“I just stepped on a mouse, and it’s dead. Did one of the cats bring it in?”

This, apparently, was not the case. Mrs. Bourcier and Lauren had both just put their tea bags in the trash and had not seen the fairly big mouse lying dead on the floor.

“uh, Paige, you killed it.”

“What? I didn’t even see it.”

“Well, this is pretty fresh.” [Lauren bent over to take a look]

Upon inspection, it did indeed appear freshly dead. I had strategically [and unknowingly] stepped on a running mouse at just the right moment, just hard enough to kill quickly but gingerly enough to not make much of a mess.

“It must have jumped out of the trash can; they get in there all the time. Hey look, its eye is popping out.” Well, I wasn’t going to argue.

The mouse was disposed of, the floor wiped, we went back to our internet socializing, and that is the story of my most recent mouse experience.

That crunch will remain in my memory for a long, long time.