Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Oh there little fella - whatcha lookin at?

So I am afraid of many things and if I had the energy would likely develop some OCD's about germs as they pertain to dead animals and public washrooms. As it stands they just creep up once and a while. Today was one of those days.

My son decided he'd like a pet mouse - not altogether unappealing since I generally sort of like rodents but - this one was not a pet store type of thing and it was DEAD. My friend Kathleen's cat killed it and left it as a gift for her on her porch. She chucked it onto the lawn and my son decided to go say hello to the rotting carcass - I couldn't stop him - he was petting it. I threw a fit like some crazed lunatic - I blame my Mother for this reaction. (Although in her case - my brother was pretending to be a cat and had the dead mouse in his mouth.) I bleached him from head to toe. I think he might live.

As I was heading home I noticed a lot of roadkill on the side of the highway and it got me thinking about people who remove them - for a living. What do you suppose their table conversation is like? I watched an episode of Trading Spouses once and they ate road kill for dinner. It was appalling. Not only was it roadkill - it had been their pet turkey. And then they told the visiting spouse what/who she had eaten. She nearly threw up. It was all very amusing.

When we were in highschool my friends and I were in a car rally.... and one of the items on the list of "Things to Find" was roadkill. I remember scraping a dead squirrel off the side of the road with a shovel - you wouldn't believe how hard I had to work to scrape that little bugger up! Worst of all they didn't even look in the bag to verify that it was indeed roadkill! I was indescribably proud of that little carpet - and the fact that I managed to keep him in one piece... no small feat.

This reminds me - my Mother was cleaning out her pond last week and a squirrel bubbled up from the bottom. Nearly gave her a heart attack. Then she put it in 500 bags and into the garbage can - where it sat fermenting for 5 days until the garbage man came. You could smell it all the way down the street. Hideous. I actually hid behind a curtain spying on the garbage men to see what their reaction would be -(because I'm childish) to their credit they didn't even flinch. Made me wonder what the worst thing they ever found in a garbage can might have been.

Sweet dreams blogfriends.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

There was a dead mouse n my Aunt's wall once. They almost had to rip the house apart to get rid of it. One little mouse = one big smell.
Sarah

elizabeth said...

That actually happened at my Grandparent's house. They had to rip out the kitchen cabinet to get it out. The smell WAS awful.

Elizabeth McClung said...

horaay, I can post again (darn Blogger.com). You seem to have a long and checkered road kill history. My only real experience was in high school when my biology teacher complimented me on my ruthlessness in killing mice, so I brought a road kill the next day to impress - didn't work out as well as I hoped.

elizabeth said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
elizabeth said...

Why doesn't that surprise me. lol.

Tobiwan said...

The only roadkill I strictly avoid is the feline variety. Last time my little girl saw kittycarnage on the road, it took me a while to bring her up out of her funk.

Your point about 'the worst thing the garbage man's ever seen/smelled' made me think about that too. Poll maybe?

elizabeth said...

Poll indeed. How shall we go about it? Maybe make a short questionnaire and paste it about on garbage cans... this is getting complicated. Anyone know a garbage man? (I always tell my kids that they are sleeping... wrong but - it works for now. Too bad my son is getting wise to it.)

elizabeth said...

I should clarify. Not the garbage men (sleeping) the roadkill.

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