Weapon of Choice

Anyone who knows me will appreciate the irony of this story...

Preparing the guestroom for Christmas, I was putting away extraneous "junk" and tidying up a bit, trying to make space for the soon-to-be arriving "guest" and her luggage. In a little nook in one corner of the room I keep a stack of Concordances and other reference books on the floor. I give them out to the SS kids, who earn them by consistently doing their Quiet Times every week. It's cheaper to buy them in a 5-pack from CBD, so I often have a nice little pile patiently awaiting their future owners. As I cruised around the room picking up I happened to notice this pile was not flush with the wall, so using the side of my foot I gave it a quick smack to push them out of the way.

After the holidays we noticed an unpleasant smell coming from the guest room, which we attributed to gases from the septic system backing up into the house. We have had a similar smell over the years, usually when it gets really cold out, and for years had decided this must be the source of the odor.

Time passes on...the smell goes away.

Recently Beth and Niam came to visit. Beth, who turned into "Super-Smell Woman" with her pregnancy, picked up the scent, though we were no longer able to smell it. She tracked it down - to the pile of reference books on the floor in the nook. After carefully moving the books away from the wall she discovered an extremely thin, extremely dead mouse with bulging eyes - smooshed up against the wall! Yes, friends...it was death by Concordance! MY weapon of choice!