Decaying Mouse Bodies in the Real World

In one episode of one of our favorite T.V. shows, Reba (I know, but Barbara Jean and Van SLAY me), a mouse crawls up into the engine of Reba's car and dies there, resulting in the whole car stinking to high heaven, outside and especially inside. Well, when I saw that episode, I distinctly remember thinking "No way could a little mouse make a car smell THAT bad." Then I talked to my sister-in-law in Colorado the other day and she related to me the saga of the mouse that died up behind her oven RIGHT before Christmas. She said they had to keep all the windows in the house open and wear winter jackets for three days. Seriously? Anyway, so now, thanks to Adam from the pest control place that came to my house and put three traps behind my kitchen sink, I now enter my kitchen every day and take a huge deep breath, not unlike a certain 6-year-old who enters public restrooms, stops, takes a huge deep breath, and, upon smelling anything remotely bad, starts gagging. Or sometimes she just comments on how it stinks in here. But mostly she gags. I usually catch her doing it and have to remind her to STOP SNIFFING THE RESTROOM OR SHE WILL GAG HERSELF. Anyway, Praise Gods, I haven't smelled any frakking dead mouse yet. Hopefully he'll wait to die while we are in Montana for Spring Break next week, and then Eric can deal with it.

But back to Samantha's awesome gag reflex -- about 19 months ago, I had to take her to see Dr. Dan to figure out why she made herself vomit every time she had to do something unpleasant. He said there was a slight blockage in her intestine, which must not have been that bad because he didn't suggest emergency surgery STAT. But he did have me give her Milk of Magnesia every night. I think it has mostly been a psychological thing for her, but it's a lot like Tums. Samantha is seriously growing up thinking that Tums cures almost all ills. She was at a slumber party yesterday four houses down from ours. I was totally expecting a call at 9:05 after they tried to get her to actually sleep there. Instead, I got a call around 6:15 saying that I forgot to give her her M of M. I didn't even argue, I just grabbed the bottle and a spoon and marched down the street. I knocked on the door, poured the M of M and when she came to the door, poured it down her throat. The birthday girl's mom just laughed. Her daughter is way more of a basketcase than mine about a lot of things, so she totally understood.