This happened a couple months ago, and I wrote most of it then, but never finished it, oddly. Now it is done, annnnnd...um, tada!
I hope you all appreciate that I get into these ridiculous shenanigans just for you.
Actually, they're...not really for you at all.
I hope you enjoy this epic regardless.
Once upon a time, there was a little mousey who decided that today, he would sit on the steps of the science center and bother the crap out of everyone. Mousey was fat, with a pointed nose and the longest mouse tale ever beheld by mankind. He nuzzled himself into the wall and prepped for a long day of being irritable and inconveniently positioned.
Back story.
I have an embarrassingly powerful obsession with small rodents. Once, I found a website dedicated entirely to 1500 photos of baby hamsters, and it was the best day of my life. I have never owned a small rodent, but I have spent enough time staring at them longingly in Petsmart that I might as well have. There has never been a time in my life that I have not wanted a rabbit. (I realize that rabbits aren't rodents - they're lagamorphs, obvi - but nobody knows that besides you and me, and...I mean, I know I'm a loser, so maybe you should come to terms with yourself.) My freshman roommates described me once as a "true mouse advocate." I also babysit chinchillas for Emma and Nolan when they go to Oregon. Now I'm kind of in a kitten phase...or bears. I like bears. But the rodent thing isn't a phase so much as it is a lifestyle.
End of back story.
As the diligent little science major I am, I'm on my way to lab with my sandwich, and unlike all the people I was walking with, happen to notice mousey in his hideaway at the edge of the stair. Naturally, I gasp, really loudly and embarrassingly, and squeal a lot and jump up and down and then say goodbye and eat my sandwich, because I get pretty hungry after micro lecture.
I know. I should have left it at that. I know.
Trust me, I know.
So anyway. Om nom nom. Sandwich is consumed. I wander back over toward the direction of our mouse friend and find with some concern that he has moved onto the step, right into the line of foot-stepping-ness, but hardly a foot from where he was before. I assume he is sick, so I stare at him for a little while like a complete lunatic. This is right at the end of a lecture block (of COURSE), so all of these freshmen are coming out of their classes and thinking, what is this chick doing just standing on the stairs, but I stand strong and continue as a protective force to his minuscule existence.
After a while, a small crowd gathers, and some freshman gives him a handful of Captain Crunch (word to the wise: mice don't like Captain Crunch), and I decide that, because there are literally five people standing and looking at him and some kids STILL aren't noticing that he (we're assuming it was a boy mouse) is there, someone has to take it upon themselves to remove him from the danger zone.
You can probably guess that person was me, because I'm the only one stupid to make that judgment call in the first place.
I dash heroically into my micro lab (not really dashing, because you're not allowed to run in lab) and obtain a pair of nitrile gloves in order to preserve myself from the rampant bacteria crawling through its fur. A little struggling ensues, but eventually I have a hold of mousey and am running down the stairs with metaphorical fanfare blasting in the background as I go to release him into the ravine where he will be safe from the feet of the unobservant science majors. And right where the hawks can get him. But that's not important.
I'm sure you know what's coming.
chomp.
So now I'm standing at the bottom of the stairs holding an angry, squirming rodent, and I can see blood pooling under my glove, and I think to myself, everything my farm-raised, mouse-hating mother has ever taught me has gone to waste in this moment. In honor of that achievement, I say a bad word.
Still the job has to be done, so I chuck him into the ravine (he bit me, I'm not going to tuck him in). With renewed vigor, I run upstairs and my lab instructor tries not to laugh while we start performing necessary hygienic procedures that involve rubbing alcohol and squeezing out a lot of blood and my entire class laughing at me and my friends signing as witnesses to my stupidity and me filling out paperwork and crying in front of my supervisor.
They tell me I have a big heart. It doesn't make me feel better.
Fast-forward.
I'm at the health center. The doctor is telling me I need antibiotics because, of course, there's something called rat bite fever. Oh, and I need to get assessed for a rabies shot.
Yeah. Rabies. I could have rabies.
Excellent.
Since things can't really get any weirder, I text my friends and threaten to bite them.
That night, during the lab I TA, I look up the health center the doctor told me to talk to about the vaccination, and this page opens up with the biggest font I've ever seen saying, "STD Clinic," right in front of all my little first-year chem students, but I close it really quickly so I don't think they notice.
Fast-forward.
I'm on the phone with the Monrovia Health Center, who doesn't administer rabies shots but who tells me the phone number for a place that actually does, but I get nervous and lie about having a pen so I don't write it down. I google some more and eventually find a place that advertises having them, so I call them.
"Do you administer rabies shots?" (There's one heck of a conversation starter.)
"Yes, we do, did something happen?"
"I was bit by a mouse yesterday."
"Ohh, okay! Well we do give those; did your doctor say you needed one?"
"He said I needed to be assessed for one..."
"Then you probably do."
"Okay, well how much would that cost?"
"Well, there are five shots, one you take blahblahblahblahblah and the last you take twenty-eight days later, and they're $295 each."
"Two hundred ninety-five each?" Please, Jesus, let there be a decimal.
"Yes, and you can make your appointment..........."
I forget everything else she said. You would have, too, if an ungrateful rodent was about to cost you fifteen hundred dollars.
It was around now that I start to realize that despite my best efforts, I am probably going to have to inform my financial beneficiaries of my misadventure.
Excellent.
"...hello?"
"MOM! HOW ARE YOU?"
"...good...how are you?"
"GREAT!"
"...uh huh. Is everything okay?"
"OH YEAH EVERYTHING'S FINE!"
"Did you fail something?"
"NO!"
"Okay?"
"No..."
"...um..."
"No, this is beyond failing."
Fast-forward.
Mom takes impending financial deficit rather well. She also calls every health department in the state, all of whom tell her, "We don't give rabies shots for mouse bites." Which puts me in a predicament, because Dr. What'shisface told me I might need one, and the lady at the clinic told me that if he said I might need one then I do need one, but Mrs. Nursefrompasadena told my mom that I don't need one, because mice don't carry rabies. Also, if I do need a shot, but I don't get a shot by tomorrow, I can't get one. Ever. Also, RABIES KILLS YOU.
To add insult to injury, everyone keeps asking me why I didn't pick it up by its tail. I'm not sure why the whole world assumes that's a universal precept, because...I've never heard anything about it.
The next day, because I'm at my wit's end, and because I might maybe be looking for a chance to suck up, I inform Dr. Microbiologyprofessor of the predicament, and he looks at me like I'm a nutcase for a few seconds. Then he discusses the general lack of rabidity in mouseys, and describes the symptoms involved just to keep me informed, adding that now that I know what it means to have them, I will think I'm having them until I'm sure that it's impossible for me to have them, and even maybe after that.
That didn't make sense and I'm not fixing it.
Eventually, more very grumpy people from various clinics inform me multiple times that I don't need a shot. Dr. What'shisface confirms that his comment was only investigatory, not actually diagnository.
Conclusion: Lydia forgoes rabies shot. Everyone else is 99% sure that I don't have rabies. I'm only 80% sure, but I'm also the only one who was dumb enough to pick up a mouse. And the only one whose life is in jeopardy, but no one seems to remember that. Maybe next time if I get bitten by an angry bunny rabbit people will care. Or a bear. I bet bears give you rabies.
Technically, the incubation period for rabies is up to a year, meaning that the virus can decide to not kick in for basically forever until after you get bit, which makes no sense, but viruses are incapable of logic. So I'll let you know what's up next October.
Oh and my antibiotics made me throw up. But that's beside the point.
Fast-forward:
Nicole and I are walking past CVS, and Dr. Microbiologyprofessor - the one who I talked to about the bite, and also the one who told the whole story to my class, which was AWESOME - walks out, and before we can recover and greet him sufficiently (seeing professors in parking lots is a weird experience), he says, "It's the mouse lady, as forever and always you shall be known! It's your legacy!"
Excellent.
fin.
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