And just like that, I don't have a mouse. I HAVE A ROOMMATE.

Many years ago, when I was a wee lass (heee, that just sounds funny) my mother always made homemade bread. Consistently. Over the years, she graduated to frozen bread dough, then to a bread maker, but 99% of the time, the bread in the house was baked in an oven. Although I do love Merita (yum-o grilled cheese or PB and J with strawberry J) if the occasion calls for bread, most of the time I pull out the trusty old bread maker of my own and get cracking.

So please, if you will, please allow your imagination to take fancy.

SCENE: 9013 Carlton Circle (where I grew up) circa 1987.
CHARACTERS:
Mama: Megan's mama, a saintly matron; knitter, gardener, church choir member and baker of fine bread.
Daddy: Megan's daddy, an impish rogue, player of pranks, loveable, likeable man, akin to laughing at inappropriate times and lighting poots at inappropriate times.
Clay: Megan's big brother, a quiet, studious lad with rapier-like wit.
Megan: Megan
SETTING: dinnertime

SCENE 1
Mama: Supper! Time for supper everyone! Come and get it!
Daddy: Oh boy! Pass the bread please!
Megan: Here you are dear Father! Hey... someone ate a bite out of this loaf of bread.
Mama: SAM! Did you eat a bite out of this loaf of bread?
Daddy: No! It wasn't me!
Megan: Clay, did you do it?
Clay: (laughing) No, I didn't do it!
Daddy: Well, who did then? Clay, it was you, wasn't it?
Clay: (still laughing) No, I didn't! It wasn't me!
Megan: I WAS you! I can tell!
Clay: (laughing still more) No, no! I didn't do it!
Mama: Clay, if you're going to eat bread, please cut a slice and eat it. HONESTLY. You weren't raised in a barn!
Daddy: Yes, Clay. Use your manners. Like me. (nom nom nom nom)

(The whole family proceeds to eat supper. Including the bread. Clay partakes in all of the items EXCEPT THE BREAD. The Venables should really pay more attention to Clay's silent clues. Again, a quiet lad whose intellect is keen. He obviously knows how the bubonic plague works.)

SCENE 2 (supper time the next day)
Mama: Supper! Time for supper!
Daddy: Oh boy! Pass the bread please!
Megan: Here you are dear Father! Hey... someone ate another bite out of this loaf of bread!
Mama: Clay! Um.... wait. There's.... a hole... in the bread bag.....
Daddy: Clay... I don't suppose you ate a bite of the bread... through the bread bag....
Mama: Sam. Can you please go set a mousetrap in the cupboard. Quickly.
Clay: I told you I didn't do it.

Fast forward to last night. I pulled out my trusty old breadmaker about 8 PM and proceeded to bake. Right before I went to bed, I took the fresh loaf out of the oven, inhaled deeply the lovely aroma and left it to cool on a rack.

This morning I woke up at my usual 5:30, brushed my teeth, grabbed my gym bag but before heading out for the day, I thought I should put the now-cool bread away for tonight's supper.

THEN I FOUND THIS.

AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

Which prompted me, understandably, to leave Regina this note:

in my defense, i was very upset. but not so upset that i went back and proofread my note and realized i misspelled raccoon.

So I spent my morning in the gym planning out my choice words to say to the landlord (I was going to be very kind; after all, who hasn't had a mouse before?) and had told no less that three people that I had a mouse, and I was late to work because I obviously HAD to stop and write Regina a tome about the mouse, and was hoping that the maintenance man used a trap, and not a sticky board because I do NOT want to have to deal with a live mouse on a sticky board at 5:30 AM, WHEN I GOT THIS TEXT MESSAGE FROM REGINA:

Regina: It was me! Am I in big trouble?

Sigh.

I won't go through the whole string, but basically Regina had to convince me that it was her and not a mouse. I then had to convince her that I really wasn't upset about the hunk of bread out of the loaf, that I had a traumatic experience with mouse bread in adolesence that she needed to be aware of. In the end, we both understood where the other was coming from (she said the bread smelled so good, and that she was reading about free will so she just went and grabbed a hunk of bread) and we had a great big laugh about the whole thing.

But I have asked Regina to please learn more about knives and how they work. Apparently, she is not familiar with the phrase "greatest thing since SLICED bread."