R.I.P, Mr. Mouse

I poked my head out of the classroom around 1 p.m today to go use the restroom. I had been holed up since 8 a.m writing and trying to talk to ADEC tech support about why my classroom internet was down.  I couldn't find a soul in the entire school. No one. I walked to the front door of the school and looked out to the parking lot. Mine was the only car left. No one told me. All the teachers and admins just decided to go home early because there was a field trip today and 7th- 12th grades weren't at school. I quickly went and gathered my belongings to GET THE HELL out of Dodge, but then remembered my original mission: go to the restroom.

My car.. the only one left in the parking lot at 1 p.m.

I grabbed some Kleenex tissue because they never have paper in the restroom. I opened the stall door, unhooking my skirt with one hand as I tried to hold up the hem with the other so it wouldn't get wet on the liberally sprayed, constantly wet floor. I started to sit down and noticed movement in the toilet bowl. 

A Mouse. A tiny mouse paddling his little heart out furiously, trying to keep his itty bitty head above water, knowing in his tiny little heart that he was facing the grand exit from this world, seeking some kind of purchase on any tiny crevice or ledge. No such luck. It was a slick white porcelain bowl. I thought about scooping him out then I thought, "What if the mouse has rabies? I'd end up having to get a lot of those shots in the stomach that I heard hurt like crazy". Essentially our little mouse friend was one doomed motherfucker. And I still had to pee.

I considered peeing on the mouse because the other stall door was jammed and I had to go NOW. I determined that leaving a mouse to drown would invite all kinds of bad karma, but actually peeing on a drowning mouse might earn me instantaneous bad mojo shit forever and ever, amen. So, I crossed my legs and duck walked towards the student restroom where I had to squat over a squatty potty and almost fell down.  I exited the building feeling like my brain had been dipped in a bit of residual Salvador Dali paint and also a little like Burgess Meredith in that "Twilight Zone" episode where he wakes from a nap in a bank vault only to discover everyone else has disappeared.

Mr. Drowning Mouse

I went straight from work to the hospital prepared to do all kinds of battle, including bad-ass-one -breasted-warrior-woman-kick-ass-nine-ways-to-Sunday-kung-fu battle.  I ended up running back and forth from the hospital pharmacy to the doctor on the second floor (at first I had stepped into an office on the second floor, which I now suspect was urology.. there were nothing but old men sitting in the waiting room and they all looked at me in a very "WTH?" manner The nurse very pointedly gave me directions to the rheumatologist's office).  In between all the running around, I was phoning the insurance company (three times), raising a little good old American hell.

At one point in all this madness I was standing at the pharmacy window talking to the  pharmacist, Mr. Mohammed (by the way, I love Mr. Mohammed.. he was patient, helpful, kind, and understanding. The only bright spot in the entire hospital) and two men dressed in kanduras sidled up thisclose next to me and totally and absolutely interrupted mine and Mr. Mohammed's conversation. They were demanding that they be assisted NOW. I saw myself turn to them. I heard myself say, "You are one rude asshole" then just as quickly I realized what I was on the verge of doing, pulled myself out of the all too real fantasy, ground my teeth until my jaw ached, and loudly started counting backwards from ten. When I reached the number five, the man standing so close to me on my left that he could probably see any stray chin hairs I might have overlooked last night, started staring at me. I felt his eyes bore into me. I never once looked at him. When I reached the last number int he countdown (the number one, for all you mathematical challenged people)  I said quickly (I am the fastest talking Southerner I know), "Yeah, I'm just an American asshole". Mr. Mohammed raised his eyebrow in surprise, hurried the men off, and then told me, "I am so very sorry they interrupted". I said, "It isn't your fault. They were rude and ignorant". He smiled a bit in what I like to think was empathy, or maybe he was just trying to get rid of the crazed American lady who was demanding her drugs,  and then he proceeded to instruct me on how best to handle the medication situation.  He also  re-faxed all the paperwork back to the insurance company.  He asked that I give it a couple of days and come back Sunday and find out what the status was.

I then drove my grumpy-almost-got-bit-on-the-ass-by-a-mouse self  to a used book store where I bought four used books and an untold amount of serenity from the mixed smell of paper and ink, and the simple act of purchasing books.  I arrived at my apartment to find Ciara, my upstairs neighbor, in my apartment busily assembling three small cabinet/bookshelves that I had bought a couple of weeks ago and that were still sitting unopened in the extra bedroom in their original boxes.  Before she went home, she managed to help me piece together my new kitchen table and chairs, which she unselfishly picked up for me today at the mall. I never could have done it without her. I possess no mechanical or spatial talents....

Then Mr. Mohammed from the hospital pharmacy phoned and told me to come by Sunday. My Enbrel medication has been approved! It'll cost me about $359.00 USD for two month's worth, but I am so happy and relieved right now. 

Just remember: if your day includes a drowning mouse paddling around helplessly in a toilet bowl while you ponder if you should pee on him or not, it could end with a blessed man like Mr. Mohammed going above and above the call of duty.