Mice in the Pantry

Rat (1)           Quitting my diet cola drink is hard enough.  The headaches, mood swings and general feelings of “unwell” are evidence that those little cocktails of carbonated water, caffeine and chemicals are not exactly healthy for the human body.  When I’m going through diet soda withdrawals, normal life is difficult enough, and then today I discovered mice in the pantry.

Life’s been full of big changes for me lately.  I just graduated from a masters program in business administration, I just got laid off from my job, my boyfriend and I just got engaged, and I’m putting my townhome on the market while looking for a house with my fiancé.  So, of course, I think it’s a great idea to quit drinking diet soda and start an exercise routine so I can look and feel my very best on my wedding day.  I’m stressed, on edge, even though most of my life changes are mostly for the good.  Well, except for the job loss, of course.  That’s a special kind of stress.

After a frustrating wedding planning session with my mother, I decided to clean out my kitchen in preparation for the upcoming move.  I’ll admit, I haven’t been in that pantry for a good, long while, subsisting through the last few months of the masters program on take-out and vending machine food.  I had no idea there were mice in the pantry until today.

I pulled items out, wondering what those little black things were on the shelves and the tops of the cans.  I finally realized those little black things were mice poop around and on top of my food when I saw little holes chewed into pasta and cereal boxes.  That’s really put me over the top today.    Mice in the pantry!  Right when I’m trying to sell the place.  Crap.

I easily got the pantry emptied out by throwing everything away.  I called Allstate Animal Control to get rid of the mice from the pantry.  And, I am now enjoying a heavily caffeinated diet soda.  Fine.  I can quit some other day.

Flying Bats

Bat (2)           A bat just smacked my brother right in the face!  Hahahahahahahaha!  I think I’m gonna pee my pants, I’m laughing too hard.  He was being a Class-A Douche, hitting on my friends, bragging about how much he can bench press and how many curls he did this morning with 50-pound weights.  Like he thinks that’s gonna impress my friends.  I’m like, we’re in the arts program, dude.  The guys that impress my friends actually think and have interesting lives, you know?

My brother steals my friend Melissa’s beer, finishes it, and walks over to the diving board to do his stupid diving trick.  Like we want to stop watching the sunset and talking about Melissa’s photography project just to watch his stupid butt hit the water.  But, he finished the beer and tossed the empty bottle at us just to get our attention.  Just as he jumped off the edge of the board, a bat flew right into his face!  He was screaming when he went under the water!  Blahahahahaha!

Yeah, of course he’s okay, but now he’s walking around all pissed off about bats flying around the house, and yelling that he’s gonna need rabies shots.  What an idiot.  It’s not like the bat bit him or anything.  Not even a scratch!  He’s just got some kind of macho wounded pride thing going on, and it’s making him even dumber than normal.  He’s got Mom’s tennis racket and he’s just swinging it around at the few bats flying around us.  I’m not gonna lie, I’d freak too if a flying bat hit me in the face.  It just couldn’t have happened more perfectly!  Just when he was perfecting the Douche Cliché, he gets smacked by a flying bat.

Melissa’s got her camera out and she’s capturing the moment.  My brother’s conflicted, cuz he obviously wants to impress Melissa, so he’s not yelling at her to stop taking his picture or anything, but somewhere deep inside he’s probably aware he’s acting like a spoiled kid.  I have no idea whether her pictures are going to work in her photography show, maybe under the heading of “Wounded Man”, but whatever she doesn’t put up in her gallery, I’m getting from her and putting it in my “Idiot Brother” collection.  Seriously, if you get hit in the face by a flying bat, just laugh about it, don’t make it worse by stomping and yelling and chasing it.