You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Happy Hump Day

I usually offer a joke and/or some funny pictures to get you over the mid-week hump but today I'm just going to tell you about something that happen last weekend. As the saying goes, you just can't make this stuff up.


Hubby and I were sitting on the couch watching TV. Sophie, our Jack Russell terrier, came in through her dog door and hopped onto the couch between us.

After a moment, my hubby said, "Sophie has something in her mouth."

I leaned around to his side and saw several blades of grass sticking out the side of her face. "Yeah, she's been eating grass again."  I started pulling on the grass and bits of fur followed. Oh, crap. She'd been into something more than grass.

I lowered her to the floor, not wanting whatever was in her mouth to land on my couch, and turned her head to pry open her jaws. Sticking out on the left side were a pair of feet.

Oh, blech. "Honey, get me a plastic bag. She's got something gross in her mouth."

He headed for the kitchen while I hung on to Sophie.

Then the little feet started kicking.

Okay, I freaked. "Honey, get that bag in here. Whatever's in her mouth is still alive!"

He laid the bag on the floor with the top open and I tried to position my fingers around the wiggling feet. Sophie didn't fight but she didn't exactly cooperate either.  I managed to pry open her mouth and something small and dark dropped onto the plastic.  It was about the size of a small field mouse but to be honest it could have been a baby rodent of almost any kind. I noticed there was no blood but that was about all.  Hubby scooped up the bag while I made sure Sophie had no other gifts tucked away behind her teeth.

My husband returned to his TV show and I tried to keep Sophie from licking me. Mouse breath. Gross.

"What did you do with it?" I asked.

"I put the bag in the trash."

"Which trash?"

"In the kitchen."

"What? No! You can't just drop that bag in the trash. That little thing is still alive."  Yeah, I was freaking again. 

I retrieved the bag and carried it outside.  The slight rustling told me the occupant with still with us. Okay, I really didn't think this one through. I don't know if I thought I was setting it free or if maybe it was a baby and its mommy would come get it or what. I just felt I had to put this poor traumatized creature back out in the yard where it belonged. So I took a couple steps off the deck and emptied the bag gently onto the grass. In the dim light I saw it stir but nothing more. I didn't want to see anything more.

I went inside and shut the door, including Sophie's private entrance.

"You know," my ever-practical spouse told me, "as soon as you let her back out, she's going right after it again."

Hmm. He was right. I should have put it outside our fenced backyard. But I just couldn't bring myself to visit it again.

Then the Calvary arrived. My son and my grandson dropped by.

"Hey, would one of you move a mouse off the grass by the deck for me?"

"I'll do it!" said my grandson.

Three of us trooped outside (my husband having lost interest in the proceedings) and I pointed to the tiny shadow on the grass. My son had come prepared with a paper towel. I stood back while they debated if this was really a mouse or perhaps a baby bunny. I didn't want it to be a baby bunny. I love baby bunnies.

Baby bunnies in the yard - last summer

"Hey," my grandson jumped back several paces. "That thing's still alive."

"I know. That's why I want you to move it. So Sophie doesn't kill it."

My son passed the paper towel to his son. "You do it."

My grandson passed it back. "Uh uh. You do it."

My big brave hunters.  I went inside and procured a small garden trowel. "Here, can you pick it up with this?"

My son - who, by the way, is 6' 3" and 200+ lbs. - carefully approached the tiny shadow.  He bent down with the shovel in his hand. Suddenly there was a spray of dirt and a thud as something bounced off the wooden gate.

"What did you do?!?"

"I was just trying to lift him but the tip of the shovel got caught in the dirt and I...I sort of flipped him."

Good grief. Captured by a dog and trapped in her mouth, stuffed in a plastic bag and dropped in the trash, and now bounced of a wooden gate.

I'd like to say the little creature survived. I don't know. We searched for a while but never found where it landed. Maybe the flight through the air (before slamming into the fence) was enough to bring the little guy out of his stupor and he scampered/crawled away. Yeah, I'm going with that idea. And he was definitely a mouse - not a baby bunny.

No, I didn't forget your aw. And, believe it or not, it's not a baby bunny.

You know you said it.

So what do you think? Hopeless, right? The whole lot of us. But I hope our mouse misadventures gave you a laugh. And least enough to get you over the mid-week hump and on your way to the weekend.

Definition of the Day:

Carpool Tunnel Syndrome - The numb feeling in your hands from gripping the steering wheel to avoid smacking one of the other people in the vehicle.