When we moved to Arizona in 1994 we lived in a small one bedroom
apartment in a U shaped culdesac. There were twelve units in all, and
the occupants soon became close friends. Every once in a while we
would have an impromptu cocktail party, oftentimes at our house.
Next door to us were some Snowbirds from Canada; two retired
professors with their 5 year old precocious granddaughter. I say
precocious, as I was not accustomed to having a child come to my door
and say, “my grandfather says you probably want to give me a cookie.” I
had not planned on giving the kid a cookie, but what the heck?
The grandparents had lived all over the world, their last location in Africa.
One evening during our neighborhood cocktail party, they began to tell
about weird things they had experienced over the years. I can only
imagine what stories their two young children at the time could tell.
“In Africa,” said the grandfather professor, “their plumbing was very
inadequate. “ Watch out for the snakes,” he cautioned, as they settled
in to their latest apartment. “They tell me they get into the house
quite easily.”
That very night, their daughter came screaming into their bedroom.
“There’s a snake in the toilet,” she cried, as she jumped into bed with
her parents.
Sure enough. Upon investigation, a snake had indeed come up through the plumbing into the children’s commode.
“He won’t hurt you,” the professor promised the little girl. “He’s perfectly harmless.”
Our neighbors never did tell us if the child was convinced.
I told this story at our complex cocktail party last night, and of
course, someone had one to top it. Reta came up with this tale, and
I’ll paraphrase.
“I was a young mom with two little boys,” she said. “ We lived in a farm
house out in the country. We did have running water in the house, but
the water available to the house came second to the available water to
the barn. In the Fall, it was not unusual for the field mice to move in
when the weather turned cold. Sure enough, we had a mouse who appeared
in early October.”
“We are going to catch that little buger,” she told her boys. “We will go to the hardware store and buy a trap.”
Reta and her boys made a trip to Ace Hardware.
“What can I do for you handsome young men?” asked the nice old clerk.
“We need a mouse trap,” the boys told him. “ We are going to catch us a mouse.”
They were sold the best mousetrap available, and went home, ready for their adventure.
“We are going to get him tonight,” promised Reta. “We will put a little cheese on the trap to coax him in.”
That night they set the trap with cheese, then sat back very still and waited quietly.
Not more than ten minutes later, they heard a loud SNAP!
“We got him. We got him.” shouted Reta’s youngest son.
“We sure did,” she said as she approached the trap and found the mouse
firmly secured under the spring wire. “Now, what should I do with him?”
“Throw him outdoors,” said the oldest son.
“No. Flush him down the toilet,” said the other.
So Reta carried the mouse, still in the trap, to the bathroom.
“Open the seat,” she told the boys, “and I’ll dump him in.”
The boys opened the toilet seat cover, and Reta unlatched the mouse
trap, dropping the varmint into the low level water. One big splash was
all it took, and the mouse came back to life. He began to swim round
and round in the slightly filled toilet bowl.
“Flush the toilet, mom,” shouted one son. She did just that, but with so little water in the stool, the mouse did not go down.
“Get me the plunger,” said the now almost frantic mom. “We’ll plunge him down.”
And plunge she did for several try’s until the now stunned critter went down the toilet, never to be seen again.
“That’s enough varmint stories for one night,” suggested one of our fellow story tellers. “You girls will have nightmares tonight.”
Not to worry. I for one slept like a log last night. After all, who is afraid of a little ole mouse, dead or alive?