That One Time My Husband Maimed Himself Because of the Mice

It's all Julia Robert's fault.  It's her fault that my poor husband ended up in the ER at 2am after being partially blinded by a bottle of Fairy Power Spray.  Bad Julia.  Bad!

Let me start from the beginning.  The year was 2004, the month December, the location England.  K had just gone to bed early in preparation for an early training mission the next morning.  I had just settled down on the couch to bask in the glow of the beautiful lights on our Christmas tree and watch a little E True Hollywood Story; Subject: Julia Roberts.  As I was silently mocking her brief marriage to Lyle Lovett, I saw something out of the corner of my eye.  A gray whoosh by the window.  What the?  I sat motionless and again I saw something.  But this time I was pretty sure it scurried.

"HONEY!  Get down here!  NOW!"  I yelled to my poor tired husband who was trying to sleep.  Considering the tone in my voice, he must of thought that I was bleeding to death or something because he actually did hurry down the stairs to me. 

"WHAT!  What is it?"  He looked at me like there better be a good reason that I had woken him from his beauty rest.  And that was when we both saw it together.  The mouse.  The mouse of death, misery, and destruction.  Evil incarnate, staring at us from our window sill.  And then suddenly, the evil multiplied.  There were two mice. 

And like a light switch turning on in the deepest recesses of my brain, it suddenly all made sense.  It wasn't some twisted miracle of Christmas that was causing our tree ornaments to literally drop off the tree before our eyes the past week.  It was the MICE!  AHH!  And the bits of wrapping paper everywhere?  It wasn't Max!  I made a mental note to apologize to the poor boy.

After a quick discussion, K and I decided that the mice came in with the tree.  The artificial tree that had been stored in our garage the past year.  The tree that we had brought inside over a week ago.  We'd been sharing our home with mice for approximately ten days.  And more specifically, my son had been crawling all over mice-tainted carpet.  I made another mental note to give him a bath in Clorox later that night.

Well, we couldn't just let the mice run willy-nilly.  We had to CATCH them RIGHT THAT INSTANT.  We became obsessed, which is not shocking to those of you who know us.  Our action plan consisted of four items: a broom, a bowl, some shock, and some awe.  K was going to lunge toward the mice with the broom, not much unlike a crazed hockey player, and I was to throw the bowl and/or towel on them.  Sounds easy right?  Well my friends, if it were that easy I think that maybe we could deem the whole mouse trap industry as the biggest scam since the Comcast Triple Play.  Because I'm here to tell you, it's no scam.  You CAN'T just be like all... hey, let's catch a mouse with a broom and a bowl.  That's retarded.  And here, what happens next, is where we take retarded to whole new levels.  I say "we" but of course I really mean K. 

We continued with the broom and bowl method for a good hour or so until we had destroyed our house.  Furniture was on it's side, curtains had been ripped asunder, and we were sweating profusely.  In what I thought was a stroke of genius, I had taken all the presents from under the tree and made a sort of "mouse maze" hoping we could funnel them through it.  Yeah, that didn't work.  Hi Darwin, it's me Susannah.  Care to revise your theory?

Finally, K and I sat and regrouped on the couch.  It was nearing 1 am and most normal people would have probably given up and gone to bed.  But we, in a turn of events that could be deemed heroic, valiant, and shocking even, decided to up the ante on these creatures of the night.  Behold, we broke out the chemical warfare.

Since I had recently become a hippy homeopathic cleaner (read paranoid, obsessive and perhaps a bit bored), I had thrown out all chemical cleaners and made my own... mostly out of vinegar and borax.  But, I had kept one thing and that was the Fairy Power Spray.  It may have a wimpy name, but that stuff could cut the grease right off of Mr. Clean's shiny head.  It was our only line of defense at this critical juncture and K came running out of the kitchen waiving the bottle in the air shouting "Power Spray Power Spray... I'll get you bastards now!"  He wasn't even being dramatic at all.

At this point, we had to do a little reconnaissance around our lounge.  Thinking it was being all smarter than us, one of the buggers was hiding in between our radiator slats.  And for those of you who can't quite picture what I'm saying, imagine two metal pieces sandwiched together vertically against our wall.  K, in can what only be called an act of foolhardy bravery, grabbed the Fairy Power Spray and positioned it under the radiator vents near the floor.  At the same time, he stood staring down through the top of the vents to get his weapon aimed on the target.  "I've got him!  Hasta la vista you little...."

And for a moment, time stood still.  Tha-thunk went my heart.  Pitter patter went the mouse, who was scurrying away from the radiator.

And like in a slow motion horror flick, K turned to me and yelled "I'M HIT!  I'M HIT!"  For in the instant that he had released the trigger on the Power Spray, the mouse had suddenly darted away.  And that stream of spray went directly up the radiator and into K's eye.  If someone had taken a toothpick and pried his eye open and used a funnel to aim the spray into it, nay 5 centimeters away, they STILL wouldn't have gotten quite the perfect shot that he somehow did through that radiator.

K ran to the kitchen sink and started to flush water through his eye, all the while yelling "I'M HIT!  I'M HIT!"  In a moment of lucidity, I called my friend, my best friend, and yelled "K's blind, house destroyed, need to go to the emergency room!  Come over and watch Max!"  Poor Max, who in the commotion, was upstairs screaming in his crib.  I didn't have time to give her the details of the night's events.  K had been HIT!

She was there in 3 minutes flat.  We met her in the driveway and K yelled... IT WAS THE MICE! while waving the bottle of Fairy Power Spray manically.  Unfortunately we were completely unaware of my friend's debilitating fear of mice.  But K had been HIT!  Pilots take possible injuries to the eye VERY seriously.  Very.

We got to the ER and I guided my poor injured husband in the doors.  I explained to the nurse that he had a chemical burn to his eye and needed to be seen by a doctor.  She was about to ask what chemical it was, but she didn't need to because K was pacing aimlessly around the waiting room waving the bottle of Power Spray and bumping into walls.  I don't know why he acted in such a way, except perhaps a chemical burn to the brain had also occurred.  And that nurse totally snickered at him too.  And then she called the publisher of the Darwin Awards.

K was seen by a doctor right away and had his eye examined.  Come to find out, all he needed was a few drops of some ointment and some rest.  I discreetly, due solely to my embarrassment from the waiting room, took the Power Spray out of his vice grip and threw it away.  The doctor sent us home.

As we pulled into our driveway, at about 3 am mind you, I could see my poor friend standing in the middle of our lounge holding the broom.  Not much unlike a sentinel.  The stench of fear permeated her being, her eyes were slightly glazed, and she hadn't moved an inch since we had left.  She reported that these mice had been very "cheeky" and had spent the entire time stalking her and making their plans of attack.  Bless.

So you're probably wondering what happening to K and his early morning training flight.  This is the phone conversation that I overheard at about 6 am, when he was supposed to be there.   

Dudes, I can't come in this morning.  Pause.  Yeah, I'm sick.  Pause. Nothing serious, just a problem with my eyes.  Pause.  They'll be fine tomorrow.  Pause.  It doesn't matter what happened.  Pause.  Yeah, I don't feel like going into it.  Pause.  LEAVE IT ALONE!

K's vision returned to normal, order in the house was eventually restored, and the mice situation resolved.  The details of how the mice met their end is another story all together... a story of unbridled passion, crimes of humanity, shades of melancholy, and unremitting grief.  One that is best left untold, lest I lose any readers that may be offended by cruel and unusual acts of malice.  A True Hollywood Story, if you will, Subject: The Stuart Little Massacre.

      

   

         

Comments

[Angela]

Screw Wednesdays, Fridays are my favorite now!!! Thanks for pulling me out of an MPF-passport-idiocy-induced funk!

[Randy Peyser]

Susanna, you are absolutely hysterical. I found you through a Google Alert that came to my Inbox today. If you have not published a book yet, I encourage you to do so. Your work is so damn funny. The first book I wrote was called, "Crappy to Happy." It became a best seller for the publisher who bought the rights to it. I have a new book out now called, "The Power of Miracle Thinking." That's at www.miraclethinking.com. My author services are at www.authoronestop.com in case you are interested in pursuing the book stuff. You are very talented. I want to encourage you to pursue this, regardless of whether or not you ever work with me. Many people will benefit from your work. Sincerely, Randy Peyser

[Mom]

Wasn't Lins standing on a chair holding the broom? Also, this reminds me of the night your dad and I stayed up trying to get Cinnamon the Guinea Pig back into her cage. We got her out to play and she got away. We finally kept her from going behind the cupboards again by throwing a towel in the hole. Pesky little rodents. We just didn't want ours dead!

[Ashley]

I am laughing so hard I am almost crying... great post Sus and I agree with "Randy" that it is time for you to write professionally. You are the best and K cracks me up. You are quite the team... I just wish we could be next door neighbors :)

[Lins]

OK Ok, let me set the record straight here. I HAD moved... just not very far. I'd been in your dining room AND the kitchen. I wasn't on a chair but as banging the broom against it very loudly - chanting "Keep away! Keep away!" OK so i wasn't actually chanting... more like praying really really hard!
And I'd do it all over again if it meant you were living down the road still.