THURSDAY: A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Screams Ten Reasons I Should Have Stayed in Bed Today

I got up late and arrived early to work. If I'd gotten up earlier I would have arrived later and missed what happened next.

Reached down to turn on the computer. A mouse.
Right there at my foot of my left shoe. First thing in the morning.
Screaming.

I called the police.

Literally.

He lives in the next room.
When he heard me scream he naturally came to my rescue with guns
blazin' and mace poised. Actually, he is used to my screaming and
sauntered in with a biscuit and a cup of coffee to see what disaster had fallen
me this time.
There was no need to mace the mouse.
It was dead.

Let us remember I am phobic. Matters not. It's a mouse.

More screaming from Yours Truly.
Entombed like a mummy beside my hard drive.
More icking and yukking and yes, an unlady-like utterance under the sacred Pledge of Allegiance poster and in the presence of the sausage eating badge-wearer. And all before 9:00 am.

10:00 Call to OSHA

Unsanitary conditions doth not a happy workplace make.

And besides, insanity is contagious. Think of the lawsuits.

"I'd like to report a deceased rodent on the floor," I sobbed. "And get someone here fast. I really need to come back into this room to do my job. Officer Crumbcake is not equipped to teach opera today. He can't even tell a real scream from a high C!"

"Where is the mouse now, ma'am?"

"In mouse hell," I said " and that's where you're going Mister if you don't get somebody here to take care of this."

"If the mouse is dead then why are you screaming?"

"That's a C sharp!"

11:00 am

A twenty minute emergency phone call to my therapist to discuss why and how I keep attracting rats in my life. What unconscious mantra am I muttering? She suggested I attempt to resolve the deep-seated resentment I harbor for my many traumatic childhood experiences. "You never met Mickey. Your parents never took you to Disney world. You have issues, dear. Get over it or expect this same lesson to appear over and over again in your life. That'll be $90.00. Time's up."

11:20 Redial. 1-800-Cheap-Doc

"No one takes me seriously."

"Why do you say that, Mimi? Can you describe what you're feeling right now? Let me set my stopwatch."

"I hate walkie-talkies, Doctor."

"The mouse had a walkie-talkie? How unfortunate for you and your deep-seated issues stemming from the fact that your parents could never afford a telephone and made you walk around with your private conversations blaring on the walkie all day long. We've discussed this dear, remember? This lesson will continue to appear in your life until you rid yourself of this traumatic memory and buy a decent cellphone. Perhaps a Cricket. You could cure two phobias with one stone."

That's not what I mean you idiot. It's a conspiracy."

Why do you SAY that Mimi? What are you talking about?

I heard the officer say to my boss "There's a terrorist in Miss Lenox's office."

Oh. I see.

"And what was the response? What did you hear dear, through the walkie-talkie? Think, Mimi, think. What did you hheaaarrrr through the walkie? Was it your mother's voice or your father's? This could be a breakthrough, Mimi. Think! Think!

"Just laughter. Lots of laughter."

"You forgot your medication today, didn't you dear?

"OSHA refused to refill my prescription and suggested I use the standard issued red emergency zippered bag with proper glove-handling procedures, Clorox bleaching scrub for the hard drive and fill out a 20-page questionnaire signed in triplicate and notarized by noon or no-can-do. I need my happy pills before then."

"They're not real doctors, Mimi."

"Well, neither are you!"

That'll be $180.00. Time's up.

12:00 Lunchtime. Cafeteria. I can't eat because the spaghetti reminds me of mouse tails..

1:30 pm

Lecture hall now sanitized with rat-proof ammonia. I've dimmed the lights. Set the scene. Cued the music. Placed my notes on the podium. Time to give a lecture on Tejano music and conjuntos culture. I am standing in a very long and boring pencil skirt -brown in fact - pointy shoes, form-fitting librarian-like tailored blouse, long dangling earrings and a funky belt just for the heck of it. I am finally over the morning's shocking developments. The lesson is going well. Hands are raised. Questions are flowing. Chalkdust is flying. Cultural ideas and exchanges the likes of which the United Nations has not seen! Until...

I had to ask a geography question. Suddenly, I felt like a game show host on "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" Blank stares. Silence.

Pencil skirt to the rescue. I walked to the back of the room. Retrieved the gigantic rolled-up map of the world from the far corner behind the booby-trapped file cabinet. Lost in my "teachable moment" euphoria I swept the map from the corner with a flourish and a dangle, walked back down the steps to the front and rolled out the map on the floor. Hands-on. Tactile. Why isn't my boss here to see this stunning display of academia?

I pointed to the map. Uno. Dos. Tres.

Texas. Mexico. Mouse.

Stuck to my skirt.

In that order. On a sticky-trap mousetrap that the entire class had seen with every lovely step I made back down the steps.

"Where is Mexico in relation to Texas? North or South?"
Everybody knows that. Right? Wrong.

Everybody knows that Miss Lenox's worst nightmare has come upon her.

In public. Kill me. Just kill me now.

Screaming.

He's eating spaghetti this time. With garlic bread and carrot sticks. How in the conjuntos is he going to save me from impending stroke with his hands full of Italian crumbs? I'm standing there in front of a room full of people with a world map stuck to my skirt, Mickey Mouse's plane has landed in Dallas and he has the nerve to answer my C# with noodles?

"What is it this time, Miss Lenox? Seen anymore mmm.....?"

Have you ever seen anyone spew spaghetti? It's not a pretty sight.

Senorita was not amused.

Ping! Loudspeaker. Intercom comes in.

Phone call for Miss Lenox. It's your therapist.

"Well put him on speakerphone. I'm a little busy. Can't you see that?"

I can't see anything. This is the loudspeaker, Miss Lenox. You know. The I.N.T.E.R.C.O.M system? Think of it as a very large walkie-talkie."

Smart-aleck.

At this point I've decided that if somebody doesn't get this rat off my pencil skirt I'm going to die a slow and painful bilingual infarction right then and there.

Just then Johnny on the spot jumps from his seat and attempts to pull the sticky mess off. It was a tug-0-war. I can't look. I am swaying in the wind. Holding onto the podium and hyperventilating. It is stuck to the cotton. Will not let go. The harder he pulls the likelier it is that somebody in that room is gonna get more than they bargained for.......I can't remember a more appropriate time to recite The Lord's Prayer.

Officer CC has finished his jello pudding by now and decided to help. There is salad on the floor, long mouse-tailed Angel Hair pasta, and a very large picture of a big black rat - minus the brown skirt - sitting seductively on the white-paneled sticky trap. In graphically perfect glorious detail.

"It's just a picture, Maestra. It's not even real. The real one died this morning, remember? SEE?! He held up the nasty thing in front of my red face, "You were scared for nothing."

"It looked real to me, Junior. Hush!"

"We heard you scream, Miss Lenox. What's going on in there? Are you OK? Are you breathing? Do we need to call 911 again?"

"Sure we are. Just discussing how rodent-infested wildlife affects Tejano compositions in Texas etc etc and we got a little carried away.

You can say that again.

I'm oversleeping in the morning.

As you know, faithful readers, this is not my first encounter with a mouse this year. Read the sad "tail" of one such hellacious creature camped out in my car. Read it here and here and here. You will never leave McDonald's fries in your car again.