Never Let Them See You Sweat

Apollo, the mighty hunter, believes our family lacks the proper number of rodents and small birds in our diet. So he's taken it upon himself to be our provider.  The canal  across the street, our little stream in the back yard, and the farm behind us are like a mega super store for that cat. We're frequently being lovingly presented with dead things. And not so dead things - like the terrified bird I rescued last weekend

A couple of days ago he brought Kelly a mouse, who escaped - darting underneath furniture in the family room downstairs. At least I was told it was a mouse. You see there's not a whole lot of critters that scare me. Mice certainly don't. They're kind of cute, actually. Rats however scare the bejebus outta me!

And the boys know it.

So this afternoon, when the boys excitedly informed me they'd seen the mouse in the living room, I jumped into action! The poor thing was trapped underneath the television cabinet being stalked by Apollo and poked with the handle of a butterfly net by the boys.

I got down on my stomach trying to snatch it in the net. That's when it happened: Niko described it as having a long, fat tail. Gus confirmed.  What? Mice don't have long, fat tails. They have cute little tails.  We're they sure?

They reiterated the tail's dimensions, and then added, "Daddy, it's not a mouse. It's a little rat. Here it comes! It's a rat!"

In a moment that does absolutely nothing for my masculinity, I jumped - in a single leap - onto a chair, waiting for the demonic rodent to attack.

It raced out from under the stand, hoping Apollo wouldn't see it, darting over Niko's foot. This is what I saw:

I let out a little shriek and let the visible shiver shake its way down the length of my body. The boys burst out laughing. They had seen something similar to this:

So yeah. Maybe I overreacted. Maybe the boys enjoyed seeing a one-ounce mouse cause their dad to nearly soil himself. They laughed and laughed.

I redeemed myself eventually - trapping the poor thing in the blanket in which he was hiding from Apollo's murderous overtures, and releasing to the wild.

Go ahead. Laugh it up. Next time it could be you!