A shrill scream left my mouth involuntarily as I saw a small, furry brown shape scurry across my dining room floor. “It’s a mouse!” I shouted with surprise to my husband. “Kill it! Get it out of the house!”
“You think I know how to kill a mouse?” my husband asked, bewildered.
“You’re the man. Who else is going to do it?”
My husband paused for a minute. Then he left the room. My feet were up from the floor on the couch where I was sitting, and my eyes were riveted towards the place where I last saw the shape. I did not want to let it out of my sight. If it was lost, I just know that it would scurry across my face in the middle of the night.
My husband came in with a jar, and after about ten minutes of my screaming “Get it! Get it!” with a darting mouse, we caught the mouse in a jar. I didn’t want to know how he killed it, so I didn’t ask. I just said, “Don’t let it loose in our backyard. He came in once; he’ll come in again.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Several weeks later, a squirrel was eating my tulips. I love red flowers, and those were my only red flowers. “Is it legal to shoot a BB gun in the backyard?” I asked my husband.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I took 63 shots to get rid of my allergies. The worst of my allergies was cats. If you’ve read my book Growing Up as a Missionary Kid, you know that I broke out in hives because of a cat. My nose would always drip like a faucet around cats, and the allergic reaction would sometimes progress into full-blown asthma. I was hospitalized once because of asthma caused by allergies set off by a cat.
Then I went to an allergist as a teenager. Each time I got a skin test, I nearly fainted. My vision got dark around the edges, and right before I hit the floor, my vision would suddenly be clear and crisp. Someone had put some rubbing alcohol under my nose.
After the course of several years, getting a shot in my arm every week, then every month, I was theoretically no longer allergic to cats. Well, I had never really tested out this theory before…
(Stay tuned for Part 2…)
