After I finished rubbing my snout in the icy snow, I decided to check out what Ma was doing. You see, Ma requires a certain level of supervision when she's outside in the yard. She's always raking up leaves or digging holes which means that there are always garden tools or plants that need to be carried away by yours truly. So I surveyed the yard and located Ma. She was raking up leaves that had gathered in the basement doorway. Wasting no time, I scurried over to her side and started snuffling my way through the pile of leaves she had already collected.
Truth be told, I was searching the pile of leaves for a nice stick to chew on. Never did I ever expect to find what I found and when I did, I did the only thing I could: I picked it up in my mouth.
I had found a small, furry, and very much deceased creature.
Now, I've heard Pa, Ma, and Sister argue about it before: What is the difference between a field mouse, a mole, and a vole? Well, I certainly didn't know, but I did know that I had one of them in my mouth (there was, after all, no zoologist present at the time of death). I also knew that whatever it was it didn't taste particularly good. But even though it didn't taste good didn't mean that I would simply walk away from it. No, I had to get Ma's attention so she could take it away from me (that's one of the top three purposes of the human race, isn't it? To buy soft comfy furniture for me to sleep on, open the food tin so I can eat my supper, and take disgusting things out of my mouth).
I've learned over the years that my family is most suspicious of me when I'm quiet--that that's when they come looking for me expecting me to be up to no good. So I, with the mouse/mole/vole still in my mouth, wandered about ten feet away from Ma and lay down in the grass. I spit the mouse/mole/vole out on the grass in front of me. Then I waited.
Ma was uncharacteristically oblivious to my quietness, but I was patient. I lay there quietly with the late mouse/mole/vole before me trying not to look at it for fear of losing my most recent meal. Ma, meanwhile, raked away.
Eventually, after what felt like forever, Ma noticed that I was acting weird. I wasn't nosing through her leaf piles any more. I wasn't snuffling through the bushes. Something was amiss.
Ma turned to me and I immediately gave her my "yeah, I've got something. Aren't you gonna come and take it away from me already?" look. That message she got loud and clear. Quickly, she advanced on me.
Now, just as I wasn't going to leave the mouse/mole/vole behind just because it didn't taste good, I certainly wasn't going to give up the mouse/mole/vole to Ma without at least putting up a little fight. As Ma approached me, I summed up my strength, wished I was able to pinch my nose, and picked up the mouse/mole/vole.
Ma started shouting "drop it" and reached for my collar to prevent me from running off. Ever the obedient dog (and more than happy to get rid of my icky tasting prize), I immediately spit out the mouse/mole/vole.
Ma obviously wasn't expecting me to have found a small, furry, and very much deceased creature either.
Standing between me and the mouse/mole/vole, Ma started frantically motioning to Pa (who was inside the house watching the events unfold), desperate to get his attention so that he could collect the recently departed animal and dispose of him before I snatched him up again. Pa eventually came and collected the mouse/mole/vole and while he and Ma once again debated the difference between mice, moles, and voles, I considered my next step.
I decided to circle back to where I had initially found the mouse/mole/vole in hopes that I would find something just as exciting (though hopefully a whole lot tastier). For fifteen minutes Ma watched as I circled from the spot the mouse/mole/vole had departed this world, to the pile of leaves I had plucked him from, to the spot that Ma and Pa had taken him away from me, but to no avail. I never found anything else.
Once all the leaves were picked up, Pa, Ma, and I went inside. I was exhausted from my adventure and was more than happy to go take a nap, but Ma was obsessing about the fact that I had been carrying around a dead mouse/mole/vole in my mouth. Hoping to get the nasty taste out of my mouth, Ma gave me a cookie. Not wishing to insult her, I ate it. Then Ma brought me my water bowl to wash down any lingering taste. Obediently, I drank. But then Ma, taking advantage of my drooly jowls and dead set on erasing all trace of the mouse/mole/vole from my lips, grabbed a wad of paper towels and started wiping my mouth which I really hated.
It's been over twenty four hours since I picked up that mouse/mole/vole and I'm still being harassed about my germy jowls. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to break my usual rule of not being a kissy dog and give someone in my family a big wet kiss across the nose. I, for one, can't wait to see that person's face.
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