If you have followed my blog for any amount of time at all, you know that my luck is not the greatest. Mine is a life sprinkled with good fortune in terms of family and irresistible good looks, and terrible in terms of staying upright, my dream to be independently wealthy, avoiding weird illnesses, and other things of the sort.
I did hit a small jackpot in the job lottery and found one that keeps me busy, paid, and overall, pretty happy. In the couple of years that I have been there, I have become the go to person for most things, and enjoy getting to be a helper throughout the majority of days. The problem with being the helper is that when crap goes south, there is nobody to turn to except yourself. And crap always goes south.
I took a much needed day off after Thanksgiving so that we could visit Ryan’s family 6 hours away. After working Wednesday, we hit the road about 4pm with a toddler stowed away – he did a good job both ways overall, but traveling with a toddler just makes it more complicated. After a few days, we made the trip home late Saturday, rested on Sunday, and hit the ground running on Monday. Ready to be back to work, I strolled into the office my usual hour + before another soul arrives, and started answering the swarm of emails that awaited me. Before long, I needed to reach into my top desk drawer to retrieve my stapler that I have to hide because I work with hoodlums who will steal anything left out.
I grabbed the stapler and noticed something small fly off of it out of my peripheral, but didn’t think much of it. As I proceeded with my day, I took inventory of my desk and noticed that something wasn’t quite right. Random pieces of all of my office supplies were flying off every time I picked something up from inside my drawer. I decided to investigate, not knowing that I would never be the same as before saidinvestigation.
Upon an extended look into my drawer, I realized that I had an intruder gallivanting through my things in the form of a rodent. A mouse had been in my desk! And he left so many presents. As I continued to search and remove said presents with bleach wipes, I noticed that this had been more than a quick drop by visit over the holiday weekend – I had a full blown squatter living between the 3 drawers and inner workings of my desk. A mouse was living in my desk and using my nametags as urinals!
Having grown up in the God forsaken desert where the only living creatures were scorpions and tarantulas, I have very little experience with mice. Everyone who I begged to help me asked me if I had any food in my desk, and I kept telling them that I have gum and like 3 werther’s hard candies; 2 of which had been eaten through. 1.) Apparently, my mouse is an 85 year old woman, and 2.) I have food in my house, but that doesn’t mean that people can just show up and say ‘You have food, so I live here now’. That is not how it works! What am I supposed to do? Draft a tiny little subpoena and leave it in my desk with a court date?
Luckily, we have an amazing maintenance director who brought me some traps, told me to put them in the middle drawer and around the walls, and he would show up at 6am to check the traps for me. I think he took one look at me and knew I was no match for a creepy crawly mouse. Day 2 of the hostage situation began with new presents in drawers 1 and 3, and an empty trap in drawer 2. She’s a smart little old lady mouse!More bleach, some prayers, and the trap moved to drawer #3, and I ran for my life.
Day 3, I walked in, set my things down, and slowly opened my bottom drawer with my foot. As it slowly slid open, I thankfully saw no mouse and better yet, no mouse trap! As I rejoiced at the mouse’s day of reckoning, I felt the slightest twinge of sadness for the mouse’s life being over at the tender age of 85, but I technically didn’t kill her. I just ordered the hit that did kill her. Totally different. She’s either haunting me or she left her husband behind, because as I left today, I swear I heard a squeak as I shut the drawer. It either said ‘Rest In Peace, Gladys’ or ‘I’ll exact revenge on your life, Heidi, for killing my dear wife Gladys’.
