July 4th Pest Fest

How was the holiday weekend, folks? What’d you do on the 4th of July?

Because I incinerated a dead mouse in my cousin’s oven.

Yes, you read that correctly. You see, Timmy and Keith have an outdoor pool that gets a lot of use in the summer. The pool was put in by Uncle Bart and Aunt Sue long ago, and they slowly added amenities around the pool. You know, a (behind glass) TV set off the deep end, lots of landscaped seating areas, a permanent brick grill area, a nearby shed with fridge, oven, tables, ping-pong table, etc. (Just the basics)

Anyway, while the pool gets a lot of use, the pool shed doesn’t necessarily get quite as much play, and the oven out there, even less. The pool shed isn’t far from the house and when Timmy and Keith do host parties out there, they generally just make the food in the house and bring it out at meal time.¹

Anyway, some of my family members and I planned a little poolside Independence Day happy hour, and by 5:00 pm, the beers were open, and some appetizers set out. Around 6:00, I decided to preheat the pool shed oven and make the ham and cheese sliders I brought to share. I stuck the butter mixture that needed to be melted down and poured over the sliders in the oven, set that bitch to 350 degrees, and headed back out to the pool to drink and socialize.

When I walked back toward the pool shed about ten minutes later, I could see Timmy looking quizzically around the shed, and then I was hit with what can only be described as an amazing odor. (Note: Webster defines amazing as causing great surprise or wonder; astonishing. I feel like the word has a positive connotation, but… this… was not positive)

We quickly decided that there must be a dead mouse somewhere in the oven, and Timmy started pulling out the oven while I went to ask Smokey G if he wanted a little holiday project. Timmy and Smoke took the oven apart, and while they never found an actual mouse carcass, they did find plenty of evidence of one (nesting materials I think… well, that plus the evidence we could all smell). They got the Shop Vac out to clean up the mess.

Then they hauled the oven outside to be trashed.

And I cooked my sliders inside.

Then Uncle Bart and Timmy and Keith’s tractor-obsessed son, Hank, hauled the mousehouse in a tractor loader to a dumpster on one of UB’s farms.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why we specifically called on Smoke to help with the mouse-cavation, it’s because he’s already proven his worth as Mousty Hunter. Coincidentally enough, his previous mousing experience includes Timmy and Keith as well. Tune in Thursday for how Timmy sold his mouse-infested car to his little sister and her new husband.

Also, if you’re wondering: the sliders were delicious.

-Beverly “We Need a Reality Show” Goldenstein

¹By they, I obviously mean Keith, as she does the cooking. I’m uncertain about whether Timmy can cook a frozen pizza.