A Hideous Story

Seriously, if you have a weak stomach, or can't appreciate being the owner of a pet, stop reading now! Otherwise, you're in for a rare treat :-)

This morning, Mark and Johannah had just left for Seminary, and John had just taken off for work. I was about to go upstairs and wake up Glo when I saw that it was raining outside. I hobbled over to let the dogs in the house. Of course, they were soaking wet as they raced by me, into the kitchen. Immediately, I start hearing the heaving sound that can only mean one thing--one of the dogs was about to throw up. Knowing that I didn't have the stomach (literally) to clean up that mess, I called them all back to the door to go outside. Pearl could hear the stress in my voice, and per her usual submissiveness, refused to come near me. I could still hear the heaving and knew I needed to get her out quick.

I started back into the kitchen to pull her outside when off to the right I spotted something on the floor. Actually turning and looking at it, I discovered that it was a dead mouse. Blech! I could almost feel myself starting to heave as I realized that it was laying ON MY KITCHEN FLOOR! One of our cats must have left it in the back yard where one of the dogs found it. First order of business: I scared Pearl out the door, and counted my blessings as I saw her vomit out in the grass (don't worry--the rain will wash it away :-)) Then, I went back into the kitchen. Oh man. Seriously, this was too much. I can't tell you the number of times the kids have scooped mouse parts off our welcome mats, and rabbit parts too. Just the other day, John scooped a rotting chipmunk off our front sidewalk, demonstrating one of the many reasons that I have a husband and children. I never have anything to do with any of the mortalities except to tell someone else to scoop them up. Honestly, I think I could have handled doing it outside, but that's when I wouldn't care if the body smears around a bit. The kitchen floor is an entirely different story. I didn't want blood and mouse guts all over my floor!

My first thought was that if a dog can bring it in, a dog can bring it out. Roxy, our smartest and oldest dog, knows the command "find it". When I tell her that, she knows that there is something tasty on the floor and she does indeed need to "find it". It is such a handy command when one of us drops something and we're too lazy to pick it up. Try as I might, she wasn't about to "find" that mouse! She looked everywhere for the tasty bite of cheese, or crumb from a cookie, but to no avail. Once she actually picked up the mouse in her mouth but quickly dropped it. Yeah, there's a reason that Aussies are shepherds and not retrievers!

I knew there was no way to call the kids or John back, and I knew Glo would end up laughing about the entire thing while refusing to clean it up, so it was up to me. I headed out to the garage to grab a shovel, and on the way back, I looked through our shoe bucket and chose the oldest shoe I could find. Shhhh....don't tell John I grabbed his sandal :-) I headed over to the wet, dead mouse, slid the shovel underneath it, and tried to push it on the shovel handle with the sandal. It seriously took me three tries to get it on the shovel. It reminds me of when you (or someone you know) tries to grab a spider with a Kleenex, but you're so scared, you don't actually get it in the Kleenex, and instead the spider holds onto the Kleenex and then falls out of it. Yeah, I just didn't want to go that close. However, I eventually got it on, vocally "gooing" out loud the entire time.

I ran through the kitchen and out through the garage, carrying my prize. Getting down the stairs in my boot was tricky, but I had motivation. I headed out into the rain and tried to chuck it into the woods. I don't know if I was unbalanced because of the boot, unbalanced because of the rain, or mentally unbalanced because of the entire experience, but it ended up about 15 feet ahead of me on the driveway. I figured a cat would carry it away at some point, and I ran back inside.

When I tried to tell Glo about it all, she seemed completely nonplussed. She just made sure that she put on her shoes before she had breakfast. Too, I was so mad at the three dogs (not Roxy), that I locked them outdoors in the kennel for the day, rain and all.

By the time I came back this afternoon, the dead, gross mouse was gone. Obviously, one of our cats had found it again. Oh, and by the way, I don't have a photo to post of this--that would have taken more composure than I could have ever mustered.