Time for a Troop Surge
Yesterday morning, I packed the car and hopped in, grateful for a road trip away from the rodent war zone. But I should have known that if a church service wasn’t safe from the little critters, nothing was sacred.
My drive from home to northwest Iowa, where I have some radio interviews and speaking engagements for the next few days, was uneventful until my brief stop at an internet coffee shop in Cherokee. Imagine my surprise when I lifted my computer case from the floor of the front passenger seat and saw a gray, hairless, and very still baby mouse on the mat.
How it got there is a mystery to me. It wasn’t there the day before yesterday when Hiram washed and vacuumed the car. It wasn’t there Monday morning when I loaded everything into it. Did it crawl out from under the mat? Or did I set the computer case on the garage floor while I packed and inadvertently pick up my defenseless and now very dead passenger.
All those thoughts raced through my head while I considered how to dispose of the body. The day was warming up, and the situation would get ripe quickly without immediate action. A long funeral service was out, since I had another thirty miles to drive and a radio interview in less than an hour. I didn’t have a matchbox with me so a fancy coffin was out, too.
So, I went into shop’s bathroom and washed my hands thoroughly. Then I ordered lunch and white while taking care of my email, all the while stockpiling napkins for a death shroud. It sounds callous and cold, but that’s life in a war zone. Meal finished, I marched to the car and photographed the body (I wanted proof to show Hiram) before swathing it in the death shroud. Then, I looked around for a cemetery.
I couldn’t find one, so I drove off with my package on the seat beside me, praying for a burial place. Too late, I spied a trash can beside a Methodist Church, (it would have been such a nice touch), and I had resigned myself to a new career as a hearse driver. But a few blocks later, glory of glories, I spied trash bins at the end of every driveway. Hallelujah – it was garbage day! I pulled up beside a particularly attractive one and unloaded my passenger with a sigh of relief.
Hopefully, I’m safe from attack for the rest of the trip, but I as soon as I drive into town tomorrow, the troop surge begins. I’m stopping at the store to lay in a supple of mouse traps. Then I’ll enlist my husband’s support, and by nightfall, we’ll have laid a mine field.
I’m taking no prisoners. This is war.
