If only I were making this stuff up

Sometimes I feel like my life is a movie. Really it's more like a bad comedy filled with one liners like "are you kidding me?" and "yes I am not joking..."

Portland Oregon is not a hot place, but every single summer for the past decade I have lived here I have suffered the 2 weeks in the summer of record highs that always tease me into almost buying an air conditioning unit. I live in my 980 square foot cottage that transforms into an oven for these 2 horrible weeks each summer. Last year I actually broke down and decided to buy a little piece of cool heaven (aka air conditioner) about July and every place in town was out of them. Go figure.

With my new independent woman status I decided I will not suffer another summer of sweaty-ness. Oh no, I will be cool and comfortable in my cottage darn it! So I was declaring this to my dear friend earlier this week. She smiled with excitement and proudly offered that she had an extra window unit in her garage! Yes! This is it! I will be cool and comfortable and it will be free! As I fantisised about needing a sweater while watching a movie due to my overly cool house she told me a small.....um.....how would you say... fine print aspect of this air conditioning unit. "oh I think it's been in the garage for 10 or 12 years" ( I don't care as long as it works! is all I was thinking).

I went deaf to anything else she was saying. All I heard was air conditioning, and I was ready to have a movie night with my girlfriends. Enough said, air conditioning.

So she helped me load the ba-hemith heaviest air conditioner on earth into my car. And yes it had been in a garage for 10-12 years so it was a little dirty, but in my true fixer up fashion I thought "she'll clean right up." And in my getter done fashion I found my 60 something next door neighbor to help me unload it into my garage when I got home. As we lifted it out of the car and began to settle it down out popped this little gray mouse!

Picture this: My neighbor is now screaming and almost dropped the unit on me, then I began screaming and now running from a 3 inch mouse in my garage. Screaming and running, screaming and running, the mouse took off and we laughed for a good minute. I decided even though I was definitely sweating to death, this baby would have to spend over night in the garage until I could confirm there were not any other rodent tenants residing in it.
Now let me tell you, I can dress any gory wound and perform CPR. As well as clean up any human bodily fluids with ease but a mouse scares me to death. So I left it for tomorrow since I was exhausted and utterly grossed out.

The next morning I got up with the goal of conquering the air conditioning unit issue. I was desperate people. We are talking 98 degrees with serious humidity. So I cleaned it, shop vac-ed it, and ran it for 2 hours in my garage. No sign of mice and beautiful priceless cool or should I say cold air was wastefully spewing from it. So optomistically, into the house it came.

Actually one of my besties beefcake hubs brought it in and set it all up for me. He is an angel. So here were are my little oven is now an icebox. Awwwwww....so nice I was actually calling and bragging to friends and family. It had been running beautifully since 11am and now it was peak heat hour 4 pm. Life was good. WAS good.

As I was bragging on the phone to a girlfriend my jaw dropped as a saw now a new little brown mouse causually show himself from near the air conditioner to my bedroom. Eeeeeek! I am now screaming and running, screaming and running, and now shutting the little mouse in the bedroom.
My thoughts: "What am I going to do? It's in the house! Are there more? I have been running this air conditioner for hours and it's so fabulous but now I am grossed out and completely distressed about how and who is going to get rid of this intruder. Does this mean the air conditioner has to go? "

I started my phone calls. Beefcake was busy at work, GI Joe (my other girlfriends hubs was 2 hours aways), none of my girlfriends (even though they love me) would even come over due to mouse fear, so I called my surrogant dad Danny (a nurse I work with....who calls himself King nurse Danny...).

Shortly after I hung up the phone with a bribe of a cold beer, I had Danny and his wife over to help with the little mouse fiasco. By now the bedroom is a sauna since the door is closed to keep the mouse in there. So Danny, in true mouse hunter fashion, spent an hour of his time in a very hot room trying to capture this mouse. And let me tell you it was ugly. This mouse was fast and smart. It was like a movie. The mouse went right as we went left, things were knocking over, curse words were flying and I continued to scream like a typical girl. We completely lost him in the room several times. But after an hour we came out victorious and my house is officially mouse free.

The air conditioner continues to be a God send, which is also mouse free. Danny can add mouse hunter to his resume. And I continue to laugh about the entire event, which humor is a much needed part of my life right now.

Moral of the story: Nothing free is ever easy and thank goodness for my awesome friends who can help me in the masculine stuff I currently can not handle. It's nice to know I have people I can count on, even if it's just for a little brown mouse :)