The Right Tool for the Job

Alright first off, the "tool" I'm referencing is not me so get that thought out of your head. On Friday my daughter came and grabbed me, "Daddy, daddy come quick." My daughter is a bit of a drama queen. She has also learned that if she really wants my attention it never hurts to have that 'something expensive is being ruined as we speak!' urgency to her voice. This still gets my attention despite the fact that 99 times out of 100 the emergency is something really cute the hamster is doing that I just have to see, that or a toy commercial.

I followed my kid into the kitchen. "I think the cat caught a mouse," she said. There was a laundry basket with dirty clothes on the floor and the cat was frantically circling it. Now one thing you have to understand is that I am just not much of a man. I cry at sad movies and I am afraid of spiders, snakes...butterflies. I picked up the laundry basket and dumped it out and then I started picking the clothes up one at time. As I lifted up the third pair of pants I saw it...it was the biggest, scariest looking mouse I have ever had the misfortune to come across. The cat turned and bolted out of the room. My daughter screamed and so did I. Luckily the combination of both of our girlish screams frightened the mouse. The mouse opened it's mouth wide and actually growled at me its large fangs dripping with saliva. The mouse was ready to attack, I could actually see it's sinewy muscles tensing. I stomped on the floor and let out a banshee-like war-cry that frightened the mouse, it turned and ran into the sunroom. My daughter and I both gave chase and ended up cornering the monster behind the plasma TV.

We debated what to do. We thought about opening the sliding glass door and trying to scare the mouse in that direction. But I know from many experiences that scared animals never go in the direction you want them to. Finally the obvious solution hit me. My daughter kept the mouse cornered while I ran to the garage and grabbed the Shop-Vac. My daughter hit the on switch and I thrust the end of the hose at the beast. With a satisfying "THUNK" the Shop-Vac sucked up our tormentor. It occurred to me that people sometimes think I might be making things up. So, before I let it go I took a photo of the mouse in the Shop-Vac








See, I'm telling the truth.