The little visitor

It has become a ritual for Kevin and I to go to the Saturday night church service, followed by a trip to Subway. We each get our favourite subs-for me, the grilled chicken breast, for him the Subway melt-and sit down for a nice chat. It's a chance to rehash the events of the week, a break from cooking for me, and a nice little tradition. Tonight, we were enjoying our tradition when suddenly, the tradition was shaken up a bit!

I was gazing into my sweetie's eyes listening to him tell me about the class he had taken that day when suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw something dark scoot across the floor. Having grown up on a farm, I was pretty sure I knew what it was, but I didn't want to believe it. I told myself that the cap from someone's soda bottle had rolled under our table, but in my heart, I knew it wasn't true. My face froze and I quickly lifted up my feet and looked under the table. Yep, you guessed it, there was a friendly, terrified little mouse! Upon seeing me, he darted from under our table and took up residence in the corner of the restaurant.

My dear husband had experienced a long weekend. He's in the process of getting his masters and one weekend a month he has class on Friday night and all day Saturday. This was such a weekend. When he is so tired like that, he does one of two things. He either shuts down and becomes very quiet, or he gets silly! Tonight was a silly night. When I informed him-I make it sound like I was calm...what a joke!-that there was a mouse, he chose that moment to yell, "Hey guys! You have a mouse in here! There is a MOUSE in here! Yeah, I hope the HEALTH INSPECTOR doesn't stop by!" This is SO unlike Kevin that I couldn't help but start laughing. Everyone in the place sort of stopped what they were doing and stared at the little creature hovering in the corner. The woman that had just entered the store slowly made her way to the other side of the room and all of the guys sort of gathered toward the middle, ready to take on the offender, I guess.

Once all of the customers had been served, the man behind the counter came out with his broom and dustpan. He started to go after the mouse, and it tried to escape. It tried to climb up the wall and quickly darted away from him. The store wasn't very big, but it was running all over. The male customers were trying to barricade the mouse with their feet and at one point they actually had him cornered by the door, but the slippery little thing got away. He ran, as quick as lightning, under our table for the second time. I quickly jumped out of the booth and stood on the other side of the restaurant, and Kevin came to stand beside me, maybe to protect me, and maybe to get away from the man with the broom that was coming towards him.

Once again, the slippery little sucker got away and was running right for us. Just as he came towards me, he ran right by Kevin's foot and suddenly Kev was kicking it. It connected with his foot and sailed-I am not kidding, it SAILED through the air! It went above everyone's head level, above the booths, and hit the wall before dropping to the ground. It did not hurt the mouse, but it dazed him just enough that the man could scoop him into the dustpan and release him outside. Everyone in the restaurant started cheering and my "big man" grinned. He had saved the day. We sat back down to enjoy the rest of our sandwiches and he asked me, with that cute little grin on his face, "Want me to get the meal for free? I bet I could!" My hero, he had saved us all from the wicked little mouse!