I CAN'T STAY IN THIS HOUSE, I CAN'T STAY IN THIS HOUSE

There's a mouse in this house.

Okay ... right off the bat ... mice freak me the fuck out. I can handle spiders, snakes, cockroaches and wasps. I giggle at all of them and kill them with no remorse.

But put a mouse in front of me and I turn into a squeamish little girl.

Yesterday afternoon, I was walking into the kitchen and I could SWEAR I saw something scurry back behind our stove.

"Honey," I said. "Either my eyes are playing tricks on me, or I just saw a mouse."

"Oh shit," she said. "I suppose you want to move now."

Y'see ... she knows all about my fear of mice. When we first moved into this house 12 years ago, we had a mouse.

She fully remembers what I did when I saw the mouse. She remembers me jumping up on the fireplace's hearth and not wanting to come down. She remembers me not wanting to eat in the house for a month after the mouse was caught and killed. She remembers me not being able to sleep for weeks.

Fucking mice.

I HATE 'EM!!

So she went to the kitchen and began looking around for any evidence of a mouse.

Sure as (mouse) shit ... there were a few mouse droppings near the dog's treats.

I got REEEEEAL squeamish.

"We have to kill it," I said in repeat mode like a broken CD. "We have to kill it, we have to kill it, we have to kill it."

"We?" Susie asked. "Are YOU going to kill it?"

My CD suddenly got unstuck.

"YOU have to kill it, YOU have to kill it, YOU have to kill it," I said.

She scoffed at me, which made me feel like an even bigger wuss.

"You are such a baby," she said.

Okay. I got on the defensive here.

"How about YOU?!?" I sneered. "Every time a wasp comes into our yard, you go running like a little kid."

"That's different," she said. "Wasps can sting you."

"And mice can bite you, and carry diseases and bring ticks and lice and other bugs on their disgusting little bodies."

"But mice are cute," she said.

ARRRRRRRGH!!!

Mice are NOT cute. I KNOW that corporate America has tried to portray mice as cute, what with Mickey Fucking Mouse and Mighty Mouse and ...and...and...all those other cartoon mice fucks...but mice are NOT (I repeat) NOT cute.

GAWD!!

I fucking HATE mice!

So anyway...Susie goes to the store to get mouse traps, while I wait patiently on the fireplace hearth for her to come back and kill this thing.

She gets back, cleans up the entire kitchen for me with bleach, puts a mouse trap on the stove and walks away from it all.

Meanwhile, I'm scared to move because I keep thinking I'm going to step on a mouse and have it bite my big assed foot.

I got up this morning, hoping to walk out into the kitchen and see my stove covered in mouse blood and see the g-damned culprit snapped in two.

No such luck.

The mouse lives.

And I'm freaking the fuck out.

In other news ...

Gawd. Yesterday was a long day for a Sunday.

I went to men's breakfast at church yesterday. Somebody brought some venison sausage in.

I like eating strange things, yet I won't touch cheese. That's me. Mr. Weird Eating Fucker Guy.

I ate some and thought my esophagus was going to explode. Christ almighty...that was some hot-assed sausage.

I choked it down because the guy that brought it was sitting across from me at my table. I know my eyes were watering as I ate it. He asked why my eyes were watering and I said I'd never eaten a Bambi biscuit before.

Sausage and biscuit, y'see. And venison is deer meat. And Bambi was a deer.

Do I have to explain EVERYTHING!?!?

So then, they start asking for volunteers to help cook Mother's Day dinner next Saturday and Sunday.

I HATE when they ask for volunteers at these breakfasts, because NOBODY ever volunteers for anything. They all just sit there and stare blankly.

So I volunteered to go up Saturday night and help this guy make some casseroles and shit.

Then he asks for Sunday morning volunteers. Once again...nobody.

So I volunteered to go up there Sunday morning and help slice hams and turkeys.

Jeez. I may as well be president of the church as much as I do for them.

So we eat, I run home, grab the boy and wife and we head back to church for Sunday service.

I about fell asleep numerous times in church. I dunno what it was, but I don't think I'm completely over this bronchitis thing.

After church, we had to go over to Susie's friend's house. They bought the DVD player at my silent auction and her husband couldn't figure out how to get it to work.

So I get over there, and he had the wires plugged into the wrong holes on his TV. I switched the wires and everything worked fine. They were excited that their DVD player now worked and we left.

Went to Walmart. We saw a girl I used to work with and were talking to her and her two kids who used to be tiny little kids and now their voices have already changed, which was really weird. They even had little mustaches and they were only like 11 and 12 years old, but I think they're Armenian or something and those Armenians have some exceptionally hairy little kids.

Then, this guy walks up and hands us some coupons and says "In a few minutes, we'll be handing out free samples from U.S. Cutlery. Listen to the P.A. system for further details."

Hokay, Sam. I'll keep an ear out for your little announcement. Lord knows I could always use some free knives.

So we listen and the guy comes on the store's P.A., directing everyone to the mens' department for this "once-in-a-lifetime" event.

Shit! We HAD to go. You only have ONE lifetime ... and this was only going to happen ONCE!!

Sadly...that was mere propaganda. Because I can't count the number of times I've stood in Walmart, surrounded by white trash who were waiting for something free to be handed out.

So this guy gets up on this little podium and starts talking about that knife that we used to see in the commercials on TV that could cut through tin cans and concrete blocks and small mice, etc.

He whips this knife out and starts slicing everything he can find. The white trash oohed and ahhhed.

He asked how many people would like this knife? The white trash all slowly raised their hands, hoping in their hearts that THIS was what he was going to be giving away.

He informed them that this knife was not available in stores and his company won't allow him to give them away. But here! Here's some little plastic gizmos that you stick in a lemon and can get freshly squeezed lemon juice from it!

WOW!

HAND ME ONE, DUDE!!

So we're all standing there with these little plastic doo-dads and the guy asks how many people want this amazing knife that he showed us earlier.

Stupid question. Every g-damned one of us wanted that fucking knife. Like he HAD to ask.

Every hand shot up. I shot mine up further than anyone in hopes he'd see my hand over everyone elses and just give me the damned knife.

So he says that we can ALLLL have that knife!!!

A murmur of anticipation swept over the crowd.

....For the low, low price of $29.95.

People started pushing their carts away in disgust. It was damned near comical. Nobody wanted to be the last one standing in front of the guy as he tried desperately to sell one fucking knife, so we all hauled ass quickly.

We made it about 30 feet away and I turned around and EVERYONE was gone.

Man. Now THAT'S one job that has to suck. You have everyone in the palm of your hand while they think that they're about to have a nifty little knife in their hands to saw all those pesky tin cans in half at home free of charge. Then, as soon as you steer the subject in the direction of payment, they scatter like crows.

I felt bad for the guy. I really wanted to buy a knife from the guy, just so he could have a sale.

Eh.

Fuck that.

Went BACK to church at 4:00 for my monthly evangelism meeting.

I'm the ONLY one in the meetings that comes up with good ideas. It has seriously gotten to the point where a subject is brought up and then everyone turns to me to see what my solution to the subject at hand may be.

Finally, last night, they were discussing having business cards printed up with the church name, website address and map on them for us to hand out to people like religious zealots.

They all turned to me and sat there staring at me, waiting to see what I had to say about it.

And I sorta lost it.

"Don't look at me!" I exclaimed. "I can't make ALL the decisions here!"

I think they got the picture. I told them it was a decent idea, but I doubted it would work all that well. Most people would just throw the cards away.

I mean...that's what I'd do, anyway.

I KNOW I still owe some of you some personalized thank you notes for your contributions to my Rat campaign.

We looked for thank you notes at Walmart yesterday and they didn't have any.

I WILL get them out to you, because your contributions meant a lot to me.

Even if I didn't win. I'm still shocked that some of you thought enough of me and what I was doing to help me out.

You HAVEN'T been forgotten.

I promise.

Alright...I've got stuff to do, so I'm gonna cut this one short.

If you'll excuse me...I've got a mouse to catch.

...rabble scrabble mouse...