Are You a Man or a Mouse?

When I was pregnant, my husband and I rented one side of a duplex owned by my husband's Uncle Fred. Living out in an undeveloped area of Lake Elsinore, CA meant that the days were quiet, but the nights were full of life. One evening, when I was about six months pregnant, Uncle Fred came over to visit. It wasn't a very far way to travel, since he and his wife lived in the other half of the duplex. Suddenly, a small, scurrying movement caught the corner of my husband's eye. Both Uncle Fred and I, of course, turned and gasped. EEK! A mouse! And I ain't talkin' Mickey. My husband, being brought up in a hunting family (it was the best way to make sure food was on the table), grabbed his pellet rifle (a mouse doesn't require a shotgun) and "hunted down" the mouse. He cornered the little bugger behind the wood box next to our pot belly stove that served as the only source of heat in the house. He told me and his uncle to stay on the couch on the other side of the room while he attended to the task at hand. When my husband got a bead on "Mickey", a shot rang out, the mouse jumped up from behind the wood box into full view of both me and Uncle Fred and ran into the other room, where he promptly fell over and died. That little burst of adrenaline felt by the mouse was matched in intensity only by the scream emanating from Uncle Fred. This almost 50 year old, burly little former military man had jumped up on the couch and screamed like a little girl! This story is still a subject of teasing in our house almost 15 years later.

Heather Chavez - Second Self Virtual Assistance: When There Isn't Enough of You to Go Around!