tmi

On Saturday, I took sick leave after conducting storytime with my face swollen up like a boxer. It wasn't too terrible, except that I really wanted to snap shut Green Eggs and Ham and lob it at the loud chattering knot of parents who were not minding their children. I was a bit sore and tetchy, maybe. After the weekend, I shuffled back into work with my jar of antibiotics rattling in by bag. One of my co-workers caught sight of my face, and the conversation that ensued was the worst I've had since I last gave birth.

"You're better!"
"Yep."
"Was it an infection?"
"Yeah. It was an abscess."
"Oh! Why do you think that?"
"Because it popped."
"Wow! Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"How do you know?"
"It was in my mouth."

I turned red, my co-worker started laughing, and suddenly I threw my arm out and yelled, "OH MY GOD DON'T FREAK OUT BUT LOOK OVER THERE." There actually was something there, too. It was a mouse. A mouse to whom I am indebted, because my revolting face was immediately forgotten and there was a scramble with boxes and rulers and brooms. I knelt in front of the crack in the shelves and shielded the little beast before anyone could get the glue traps or club it to death. "Don't hurt it, don't hurt it! I will catch it and keep it. My son wants a mouse anyway." They gave me that sad dog-with-its-own-leg-in-its-mouth look. "We can get shots," I said. So they knelt with a box, poised to scoop it up, and we gave it a prod with a ruler. The mouse suddenly liquified into the air, becoming a streak of flying rodent, and it shot out of the crack and into the wires under the desk as if it had been spit from a straw. "It's a wizard!" My co-worker flailed over backward. I was sent to purchase a humane trap. I suspect they slipped glue traps behind the shelves while I was out, but they let me bait the little cage with peanut butter crackers and put it optimistically in front of the crack. Because what I really need now is to spend $300 on a mouse habitat.

Run! Be free, wee sleekit beastie!