Sunday, January 21, 2007

The first thing I did when I turned 24-

Sometimes in Africa you just don't know what you will be doing in the next five minutes. It was last night, about 11:55pm - five minutes before I turned 24. I thought well, why not stay up five more minutes and do something exciting like watch the clock tick. Just then, interrupting my wonderful and exciting plans we found Houdini III chomping on some of our bread on the counter (Houdini is the name I like to give any mice/rats that we have in the house). He had been running around for about a week evading us, but it was not to be so on this ill-fated night.

As the clock ticked away the final hours of my 23rd year Scott and I were armed with a broom and a piece of sugarcane (which by now is a verteran rat and bat killing weapon). The mouse ran into Scott's room which conveniently doesn't have a working light at the moment. We got busy setting up candles, kerosene mini-lamps, and barracades to block him in. There is still something very exciting about the moment that you try to make the first attempt to kill the mouse. Because you know the moment you move in he is going to bolt in some completely unrational manner. This one was no different. I made the first strike making him bolt out the other side of the cabinet, right into a 2X4 that scott tried to spear him with. He evaded the board and careened out at light speed toward the middle of the baracade. He quickly changed directions and jumped over the barracade. If I may pause the story for a moment, I am beginning to observe a trend that seems to happen at moments like this...all creatures invlovled seem to jump at the exact same time, like it's choreographed. Anyways the mouse, Scott, and myself all jumped at the same time (fortunately for me I was able to hold in any sounds that might be misconstrued as unmanly). We chased him to the other side of the room where I managed to bat him about 5 feet with the sugarcane...he them made his fatal mistake where I was able to pin him with the sugarcane in between the desk and wall and Scott was well...able to finish the job.

Somewhere in the middle of all of the - Scott looked at the clock and said, "Happy Birthday man."

4 comments:

Bethany said...

I seriously LAUGHED OUT LOUD...well done, should a birthday be spent any other way? Thank you for serving our Lord in Uganda!

mhb said...

I was reading some of the other missionary's blogs and ended up at yours. This one especially made me laugh as I remembered my first experience of 'rat hockey' at the Barts house when I was there in BGO as an intern over the summer. Its great that you all are keeping us posted with what is going on there. Thanks for your hard work!

Larisochka said...

Hi there. Brilliant birthday bash you had there (no pun intended). I'll be joining you all for the summer as an intern so I fly by your pages every once in a while. Thanks for the laugh. (I had a similar incident with a flying squirrel only it ended in us funneling it down the hall and out of doors. Which of course, to our unknowing minds, meant that it would simply re-enter the way it usually does and come visit the next evening...)

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