When she was younger, one of Sid's chores was to feed the dogs. One morning she raced up the basement stairs "I can't feed the dog, there is a mouse in the kibble". Never one to assume a task when I can delegate to my children, I instruct Grady to take care of it. He is eager to oblige and races in to grab my kitchen tongs. I stop him dead in his tracks.
"Where" I bellow "Do you think you are going with those?". He gives me a condescending sideways glance "I'm going to catch the mouse of course". Not with my bloody kitchen tongs, he's not. "You are not using those" I tell him. "Don't be such a wuss, grab it by the tail". After all, thats how I catch them. He looks at me in abject horror. "Seriously?" he nervously gulps. "Yes" I reply, "Now go do it".
Decidedly more reluctant and less confident, he heads downstairs. Sid is following close behind, eager to see how this pans out. My son is obviously more squeamish than I thought, because he uses the kibble scoop to catch the mouse. As he backs out of the crawl space, clutching the scoop and yelling for me, the inevitable happens. The mouse, sensing freedom takes a flying leap off the scoop and burns rubber to the back of the crawlspace.
I did not have a religious upbringing, although I did teach Sunday School for a while (my husband has a hard time believing that), but I'm pretty damn sure our house is as close to Purgatory as you are ever going to get.
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