So, I realize I have all but abandoned my blog. For the 2 people out there who might actually read it, I apologize.
So, to welcome you back to my world, I have a little story for you.
Today was my last day of work at my current job. Add to that the fact that I have been on vacation all this week until today, and you might be able to predict that it would be a busy day. Well, I'm notorious for having absolutely no concept of how long it might take me to do something, so I thought that the to-do list I made for my last day of work was actually realistic and attainable.
Not at all. We work half days on Fridays at my company, and I had planned on working later until about 2 or 3 to finish everything, but there I was at 8:15pm, still working. I went to the file room (to file things) and on my way back to my office, I look down the hall and I freeze.
There.
Is.
A.
MOUSE
outside my office door!
Now, I think mice are cute in theory, but I cannot stand to see one outside of a cage. I react the same way to spiders. All reason is lost and I am left contemplating whether or not a sudden move by me would cause the creature to jump on me, and if so, does it bite?
So I am standing there, frozen, and I don't know what to do. I mean, my first thought is to flee the scene, but I have to get my car keys to do that, and my keys are in the office, PAST the rodent-gauntlet. So I am thinking about sliding past the mouse into my office and I can't even think about it without having vivid hallucinations of it running over my feet or (gasp!) up my leg! I got goosebumps thinking about it. I tried to talk myself down by thinking about how small it is compared to me, or feeling sorry for it because it's more scared of me than I am of it (are you sure about that?), but none of that mattered. So I did what anyone would do: I started stomping my feet, and then I started yelling.
yep.
I yelled at a mouse today.
I think my exact words included, "Go away!"
...and maybe some other things.
And surprisingly enough, mice don't seem to be affected by yelling, or maybe our office mouse doesn't speak English.
He did not move a muscle. I took baby-stomping steps closer, and finally decided to slip past him as fast as possible into my office. In my mind, he was mere inches from my toes when I did this, but in reality, he was about 2-3 feet away from me. I decided that I didn't want to have to stomp anymore, so I turned on some music really loud and I made a lot of noise finishing the paperwork I was doing. I also scooted my desk chair to where I could look outside my door and see that thing to make sure it didn't come near my office. I was feeling trapped in my own office and trying to plan a grand escape maneuver when I looked at him and noticed he was doing a weird tiny mouse-shuffle movement. He was taking a step away from the door, but doing it in tiny halting movements, sort of like dancing the robot. Under a strobe light. I think he was trying to be sneaky, not realizing that, as a mouse, he doesn't have to try that hard. And also not realizing that I was watching every little jerky movement he made. It was very tedious to watch, and I yelled at him again, but this time I was telling him to just run and get it over with. He still didn't listen.
But finally, when he rounded the corner of the office shredder bin, I felt the rush of relief, for I had FREEDOM again. And then, the rush of self-disdain as I could think clearly again. I generally think of myself as a pretty composed and rational person, but do rational people yell at robot-dancing rodents?
Maybe getting an apartment by myself wasn't the best idea.
What if it has mice?
