It's that Friday immediately following Thanksgiving when the official holiday season opens. It is supposedly called Black Friday because it is when those retailers who have been operating in the red all year, suddenly are in the black...making a profit.
I know it is one of the biggest shopping days of the years. People set their alarms clocks at ungodly hours in the morning to rush out and save a few bucks on big tins of popcorn that contains three different varieties, or to get toys or electrical gadgets, or buy Christmas cards at half price.
I'll admit it, I went shopping. I didn't get up early though, I didn't rush around with a big smile on my face humming Christmas carols.... I was on a mission. This Black Friday was going to have another meaning in my household today.
Last night I had a visitor..... An unwelcome houseguest.... A freeloader...
It was night time, I was settling down from a day of doing nothing particularly exciting or memorable. When "he" arrived... a small dark shadow. I almost missed him, I looked again, was it my imagination? No, I saw him...I saw ......a mouse.
Ohmygosh...a mouse! I haven't seen a mouse in years! Living next to a cornfield on the East side of my place, and an open field on the South side of the house, it isn't unreasonable to expect to see one eventually. I ran for the broom....where did he go? I spied a small bookcase... he had to be behind there...I thrust the broom behind the bookcase......He jumped...I jumped.... he ran...I ran... in the other direction.
Good grief... what a wimp I have become! A mouse... a little mouse, how could it get my heart to racing and send a woman scurring so fast? I peeked back in the room...where was it? I should have stayed and paid attention....but being the chicken that I was...I ran for my life. I mentally told myself, well it could have been rabid. It could have ran up my leg and bit me. It could have have done something ....(don't roll your eyes blog people....it could have!)...
I kept my broom close by all night. I couldn't sleep well...I don't like having unwanted houseguests. It was either me or him...and well, I have got first dibs. I resolved to buy whatever it took to rid me of my unwanted squatter.
I got to thinking, boy, have I gotten wimpy in my old,... um... middle age. It use to be a mouse never would have phased me. I am finding as I get older though, I am getting wimpier, more squeamish, and I am not sure why...and I don't like it.
When I was a little kid around the age of seven, I belonged to a group that was all girls. We once went on a tour of different places to learn about businesses on a type of field trip. Afterwards we all went to the mall to shop before going home. I only bought one thing on that trip. I carried my purchase with me and sat in the middle of the backseat between two other girls on the ride home. There perched on my little knees was my precious cargo. It was a red carboard box with a handle and holes punched in the side. In my box was ....a mouse. I had seen him at the petstore and it was instant chemistry. I wanted to take the mouse home with me, to be my newest and bestest friend and pet. All the way home the woman who was driving the car would yell back,..."you have it in the box don't you? ...keep it in the box and don't open it up!"....I meekly replied..."yes ma'am" as we tried to stifle our giggles while passing the little creature back and forth.
You have to give kudos to my mom. She didn't yell, she didn't faint, ...but she was flabbergasted. Of a family of four kids, three of them being boys, she naturally expected it would be one of my siblings presenting her with a mouse in a cardboard box and not her one and only daughter. My mouse and I were best friends for about 3 weeks and then I lost him.....(uhoh). A year or two later I then was the proud owner of a gerbil. It was a mean gerbil, it bit people, it liked to chew ....a lot. I can't remember what happened to him, but I think my mom claimed he got loose one day and was lost too. It is now dawning on me that maybe my little pets never did get lost and were really..... victims.......Hmmmm... (making a mental note to call and ask mom about that later...)
As I sit here writing my blog, my broom beside me. I find my feet unconsciously curling up under me, up off the floor just thinking about the mouse.
This week-end I will go throughout the whole house, ....not leaving anything unturned or overlooked.
His demise is imminent.
I will take no prisoners.
Yes it is Black Friday....
.....for a mouse.
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