The Dead Mouse Taunts On

You may or may not have seen my facebook update while we were cleaning our new home and prepping it to move in. The story goes, my hubster asked me to vacuum out the downstairs bathroom since he and my dad just moved the washer and dryer that were in there to the basement. I was a little nervous as I saw socks and rags bunched up in corners, along with quite a few mouse droppings.

"Mice live here! EW!"


I was very careful with how I approached cleaning after I feared uncovering a mouse. Luckily, I found one corner where there was just dirt and a wad of paper, so I turned my shop vac's focus over there. As fate would have it, the wad of paper got stuck on the end of the hose and I had to knock it in with my hand.

But wait.

That wasn't paper I just touched...

Realizing I had shoved a stiff mouse into the hose, I SCREAMED, turned off the shop vac, and did my "heebie jeebies" dance all over the place. I guess my scream scared my hubster into running upstairs to check on me but all he could do was laugh when he found out all of that was over a dead mouse.

Since then, it's been nothing but mouse jokes. I had it coming, for all the laughing I do at others' expense. Apparently my son quite admires the way my dad can tease me and get away with it, so he's been trying to come up with his own jokes. One day, my son carried a small, stuffed penguin to me in his hands and said "Look, mom! I found a dead mouse!!" My heart sunk down to my toes.

This wasn't funny because we had set out mouse poison to catch the living critter that was running around and I was afraid he really did find a dead mouse. Of course, my son thought he was pretty clever and he didn't understand why I didn't get his joke.

And most recently, while family was over to celebrate my birthday, I was sharing Alex's sense of humor with everyone and laughing about my little prankster. After the story, the kids opened new ornaments from their grandparents. I turned to Eliana and excitedly asked, "What did you get??

She answered.

"It's Cinderella!!! ..... She's holding a dead mouse!"

And so, the joke lives on.