Scarred for life...

Yesterday something happened that has scarred me for life.

I was looking for my old pink Barbie roller-blades in the garage (not for me, for my cousin Ella- I swear!). I was determined to teach Ella to roller-blade because I used to have so much fun doing it, and wanted her to learn!

Anyway, I needed the Barbie skates, because even though they’re ten years old, they’re the safest ones we have for learning to skate, because they’re the ones with three wheels- kind of like the roller-blade version of a tricycle.

Anyway, I found one and was digging around the big cardboard box for the other one and found it, only to look in and experience a horrific sight- one that is burned permanently into my mind.

Inside the rollerblade was a dead mouse. Now, that in itself is okay. I’m the one that goes up into our roof to dig around the insulation for the stinking nests of dead mice (that have been poisoned by my heartless parents) that stink out the whole house (I don’t blame them- if I was killed, I'd want to stink out my murderer's house too). So, no it wasn’t the face it was a dead mouse.

It was the fact it was a bloody FOSSIL! Literally! It was so OLD and so DEAD that its whole body was stiff, it had no fur, it looked like its skin was some kind of hard leather, you could see some bones, the big (seriously, surprisingly big) teeth, empty eye-sockets… it almost looked plastic!

I’ve seen loads of dead mice. Some have been pinkies (baby ones that have starved to death in the nests in the insulation because my parents kill their parents), some have been half rotted with maggots, some have been missing appendages, but seriously- this was the most DISGUSTING dead mouse I have ever seen.

My reaction was similar to the cat above. I widened my eyes and stared at it with enough horror that my sister (who was with a couple of her friends trying to attach wheels to a surfboard... don't ask... with some of her friends) asked me, “What’s wrong Juni?”

I was in shock, but I still had enough common sense to realize that mum would be mortified if she realized I had blurted out in front of a couple of my sister’s friends that there was a freaking dead mouse in my old rollerblade so I quickly mumbled, “err- nothing. Just… a spider.” Which was enough to cause my arachnophobic sister to scream, even though she was around six meters away from me.

Ella tugged on my arm as I continued looking horrified into the rollerblade and the movement caused the rollerblade to shift and for the mouse to shift so it was touching my fingers!

Cue horrified scream and rollerblade flying up in the air. Unfortunately, instead of throwing the rollerblade away from me, I threw it straight UP! I think it’s obvious what happened next. The fossil-leathery-dead-thingy-gross-mouse landed in my HAIR! (and the rollerblade narrowly missed my cousin, who you may remember is five years old and standing right next to me).

I had no idea what to do. So I did what anyone would do. I started screaming and thrashing wildly, shaking my head from side to side like a lunatic, trying to get the freaking thing out of my freaking hair. Unfortunately, it got a bit tangled in my struggles. Kind of like the spirit of the mouse was trying to punish me for my parents’ sin (of killing it with their poison) by grossing me out to the point of collapse. As I realized it was stuck, my screeching intensified.

This caused Sophie and Jemima (my sister’s friends) to come over, wondering what was freaking the fuck out of me, whilst my sister screamed “is the spider alive?”

“Get it out of my hair!” I screamed. Sophie and Jemima saw it, realized it wasn't a spider and started to both laugh and exclaim “that’s gross!”

I shot them my best ‘no duh!’ look, and realized they weren’t being helpful and rushed inside to find mum, yelling over my shoulder, “don’t let Ella go on the road!”

I managed to find mum who went to find some gloves to put on before she took it out of my hair, leaving me almost in tears waiting in the bathroom for her to get it out of my hair.

Yep.

It doesn’t get that much more scarring then that.

Except, maybe, the fact I put an extra pair of old socks on Ella’s feet and let her still use the rollerblade.