A Mouse in my House

It only took a moment for me to piece everything together: a mouse had found its way into my front hall closet, among the numerous pairs of shoes, raincoats, umbrellas and other miscellaneous things. More than anything, I couldn't help but think how this would affect my snow day.

 Allow me to start at the beginning. Earlier that morning, I suddenly had a craving for hot chocolate; after all, what’s better than hot chocolate on a snow day? In my attempt to walk into my kitchen, I found the entire hall barricaded off with bins, wood, shoes and any other object one could possibly think of. Looking around, I saw my cats looking like Christmas had come early, my mom screaming from her hiding place in the bathroom, and my siblings building up more defenses. It was evident that this little mouse was the source of such commotion. My thirteen-year old brother, the stalwart vegetarian and animal-lover, refused to let the cats save us from the trouble of conducting an emergency evacuation.

I could have been angry at the fact that a good part of my day was about to be spent coaxing a terrified little mouse into the backyard. However, witnessing the insanity of my sister and mom screaming and hiding made my brother and I crack up. The mouse ended up running all over our house with my brother, me, the cats, and our dogs chasing after it; the scene is truly indescribable. Eventually, the incident ended with us getting the mouse in a bin and my brother chasing my sister around the house, bin in hand, threatening to keep it as a pet and put the mouse in her room at night.

He then demanded that I shovel through the million feet of freshly-fallen snow in our back yard so his new mouse friend could stay warm when he released it under our back deck. My irritation at his request increased when, in my attempt to make sure the little beast stayed warm, I slipped off the back deck into the snow while wearing a t-shirt. My little brother, caught up in a fit of laughter, soon followed and the bin with the mouse fell into the snow. So then I had to find the mouse bin in the snow, shovel the snow and keep myself from getting frostbite all at the same time while my sister and mother who hid the entire night laughed at us through the window, while drinking the hot chocolate I had wanted before the entire fiasco began.  

In these moments of utter chaos and insanity, one could easily becomes frustrated or upset. However, when you take a step back and see the humor in the situation, everything becomes less frustrating.  Just as the men in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest found laughter and humor as their strongest weapon against the nurse and a perfect escape to keep their fears away, I found humor to help me enjoy my snow day fiasco.