The Mouse That Died From Yoga

So last week Jodi and I were staying for a few days with our good friends Sean and Lori. One evening, Jodi and I went up to our bedroom. I walked around to my side of the bed and saw a little brown thing racing under the bed.

"Mouse," I announced. I said it just like I was a tennis umpire calling a ball out.

"Where!?" Jodi replied.

"Under the bed. A mouse just ran under the bed."

"Really?!... Ooh! I see it!... What should we do?"

I looked at her and said, "We should close the door, move to the empty bedroom downstairs, and pretend this never happened."

"But that means we have to move all our crap. I don't wanna move all our crap."

Well, if it had been up to me, I would have moved 25 metric tons of crap all by myself just to avoid the mouse. But it wasn't up to me. And because I don't deal with wildlife personally, I had to come up with another plan.

"I'm telling Sean," I said.

So I walked downstairs.

"Hey Sean, there's a mouse in our room."

Without even the slightest trace of joy in his voice Sean said, "Shit."

The next thing I know, Sean and I are in the bedroom with the mouse. Meanwhile, Jodi has retreated to safety in the next room.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"It went under the bed... There it is!"

Sean thought for a moment, then went to a walk-in closet and pulled out an empty white three-ring binder, his weapon of choice. Then he walked back over to where I was standing and said, "Okay, scare it out to the other side toward me."

Instinctively I stomped my feet and made loud tard sounds while waving my arms in the air. I don't know why I did that. I guess I thought that's the kind of thing that would really scare a mouse.

And apparently it did. Because within moments it came scurriying out past Sean.

"There it is!" I shouted.

"Where?!"

"Over there! In the corner!"

Sean turned, spotted the mouse, and quickly brought the fat edge of the binder down, trapping the mouse.

"Okay! Go get a book out of the closet!"

So I ran into the closet and saw a bunch of books on a shelf. I scanned the titles, trying to pick just the right book for whatever Sean had in mind next, whatever that might be.

"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" he shouted. I think the urgency in his voice was due to the fact that the binder was the only thing holding this mouse by its tail, and this particular mouse had to weigh—oh I don't know—two, maybe two and a half, ounces.

I grabbed the first book and hurried back out to him.

"What is it?" he asked.

I looked at the cover. "Yoga Anatomy," I said.

"Okay good," he said. "Fuck yoga. Bring it here."

I handed him the book, which he then used to squish the mouse's brains in.

"Ah man, there's blood everywhere," he said. "Get some toilet paper."

So I ran into the bathroom and returned with some toilet paper.

A few moments later, Sean's wife Lori walked into the room. "Did you get it?"

"Yeah, we got it. We killed it with a book."

"Oh good," she said.

We all breathed a sigh of relief. The great tragic episode was over. We could all finally go to bed.

Then Lori looked at us and said, "What book?"