The Mouse?

Yes that is a question mark right up there in the title, why would I be asking you you might be asking me? Well to tell you the truth I’m not really “asking” you about a mouse, I’m questioning the whole “mouse” idea as it relates to this story. Which centers around my wife, our pool, and well…read on and you’ll understand the question mark.

I have an in ground pool, no big deal lots of people have them, many will lie and tell you that they are a great joy to have. I on the other hand will not lie to you and will tell you the only people really getting any joy from our pool are my kids. The pool for me is work, vacuuming, skimming, cleaning the filter, scooping out bugs, balancing the chemicals, opening and closing it every year and watching the faces of any kids that visit for the pee face. Yeah you know the pee face, as soon as I see it whoa whoa whoa…take it inside pal, uh uh no peeing in this pool. That’s right, everybody outta the pool! Occasionally I’ll miss the pee face but I’ll know when someone has done the deed when someone comments “WOW, it’s really warm in this spot.” As the kid who was previously in the spot swims frantically away. I just tell them “pee” and they all scramble out of the pool like Brodie yelling shark in Jaws. That’s Jaws 1 not any of the stupid revenge sequels and definitely NOT Jaws 3-D.

After a long day of work during a hot summer day there is nothing I’d like more than to come home and enjoy my pool, a nice cool dip, it is refreshing. The last thing I want to do is deal with a pool problem after working a 12 hour day. Now, those of you that are close friends and have hung around our pool with me have heard this story several times, and it still manages to get everyone laughing every time I tell it…so you guys don’t spoil it for the rest who are just hearing this story for the first time.

I come home from work one evening after a very long hot day, as I walk in the door my wife says to me “There’s a mouse in the pool.” I of course ask ‘What’s it doing?” Thinking perhaps the mouse has also worked a 12 hour shift on this hot summer day and is floating around on a little lounge with a drink in it’s hand. She bums me out by telling me it’s dead. “You didn’t scoop it out?” I ask. “Eww, I’m not going near that thing.” she replies. WTF-not going near it? Didn’t you go near it enough to see that there is a mouse in the pool-just scoop it out and toss it in the woods. Some cat or evil squirrel or something will be happy you did. No, she isn’t going near it.

Occasionally some poor animal will wander too close to the pool edge, fall in, swim it’s little heart out but not having evolved it’s brain enough to figure out that the steps lead out and to safety, they will you know…DROWN.

Of course everyone is huddled in the corner of the house deathly afraid to go any where near the pool because there is a “mouse” in the pool, and not a Stuart Little Mouse…a dead mouse. Come on! It’s a mouse!! So I let out a sigh and head towards the pool to scoop the “mouse” out and toss it in the woods. I’ll be the hero, everyone can go back in the pool and enjoy themselves, VOILA! As I’m heading out the door I turn to see my entire family wide eyed in TERROR with their hands covering their gaping mouths. “Huh” I think to myself.

I grab the scooping net as I walk towards the pool, I hear whimpering coming from inside the house, I’m scanning the surface of the pool as I walk towards it looking for a “mouse” body floating on the top. Closer…closer…shrieks from inside the house, I don’t see the mouse floating, at that moment I’m close enough to the edge of the pool that I can see the floor at the steps, and lying there on the bottom of the pool, on it’s back, teeth exposed in its last defying act towards humanity, that is to scare the bejesus out of me, is an possum or opossum for you aficionados. “Holy crap!” I yell (I didn’t say crap) as I clutch my chest from the fright. A mouse? Now you get the question mark. A M-O-U-S-E mouse? Are you kidding me.

I scoop the thing out of the pool, it’s gotta be two feet from head to tail and weigh near 8 pounds, especially water logged. I take it down to the creek and toss it in there, sort of like the Mafia it scared me so Sleep with the fishes Possum (opossum).

I walk back inside my house and I am a HERO I conquered the MOUSE in the pool. I turn to my wife and say “That wasn’t a mouse ya know, it was a possum” and she says to me in all seriousness “I didn’t know, I thought it swelled up from being in the water too long.”

Apparently, in my wife’s world, mice are like sponges.

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