fur-spangled bedsheets

my 3 cats are unfriendly, dumb and completely ineffectual as far as vermin-catching goes. so there are mousetraps, the old-fashioned neck-breakers, scattered throughout the house.

sometime last week, the trap under the kitchen sink nailed a mouse... but by the leg, not the neck. mouse had enough strength to drag its broken body AND mousetrap through a hole around the sink's piping. it dropped down the hole into the basement, into the laundry room, and then burrowed into the pile of dirty clothes atop the dryer. there mouse died and began to decompose. i know this cos i smelled a bad smell but couldn't find its origin.

sunday morning i blithely loaded the washer and ran the cycle; and when it was done i pulled out the bedsheets and tees and shorts. it wasn't 'til i got down to the little stuff, my cute Think Pink panties, that i reached down far enough to emerge with the trap and what was left of the mouse, gray and pink held together by threads of fur and wet.

i dropped everything and ran screaming upstairs. the cats fled; the dog howled. i gibbered and wailed and flapped my arms frenetically to the point of exhaustion; then i washed my hands until the skin was raw while D, bless his heart, collected and disposed of the remains.

-- i wish i knew how to use your camera better, D said. i'd give anything for that video. you were shrieking like a schoolgirl.
-- fuck you, okay? that was horrible.
-- it was a mouse.
-- it was a DECOMPOSED mouse in the WASHING MACHINE.
-- what would you have done if i weren't here?
-- i would have dealt with it. eventually.
-- you better do an extra rinse this time. and use the dryer instead of hanging 'em outside. that'll separate some of the fur out.
-- move. i think i'm gonna hurl.

i'm suing the cats for psychological trauma.