Mousecapades

My husband passed in July of 2005.  Shortly thereafter, I was inundated with field mice.Things like that always wait until you have no one to whom to delegate that sort of stuff.  It's some kind of law, I think.  


After I got the over-the-stove microwave, I moved all of my rice, beans, pastas, noodles, etc. to the little mini-cabinet overhead. I am short and it's hard to reach and I use that stuff less often than I should.  Well, I SWEAR those mice got together and plotted my demise.  After the "incident," I could just picture them "Okay, here she comes! Are we ready? Mickey, you man the left side!  Minnie - get ready!  GO GO GO!" 

Apparently, they thought it would be hilarious to open each and every bag of beans - navy, pinto, the rice, the elbow macaroni, the egg noodles. They stacked them in ingenious little piles against the cabinet doors "just so."

So I opened both doors at the same time and let me tell you, Fibber Magee's closet (if you're under 50, google it) had nothing on this scene that unfolded - for what seemed like 5 minutes. Beans, rice, noodles, literally rained down on my head, up my sleeves (my arms were stretched up, still holding onto the handles in disbelief) all over EVERYWHERE and bounced off of the stove, the 2 inch ledge of the microwave, into my hair, down my blouse. 


When everything finally stopped falling and bouncing all over the kitchen, there wasn't so much as a single bean left in that cabinet. And I am still standing, my arms in the air.  Holding onto those cabinet handles.  Imagining them hiding in the back corners.  Laughing at me.  High-fiving each other.  I was still finding stray grains of rice that had escaped the vacuum months later. 

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