What has it Got in its Pocketses?

A recent comment reminded me of a long ago incident that etched itself quite solidly in my memory.


Before the boss and I were married I worked on a much larger dairy, milking around three times as many cows as we do now. One of my duties was overseeing a series of young men as they learned to milk cows and work in the milking parlor and dairy barn. 


There was a series because as fast as they were trained to do farm work...to show up at five AM, milk cows, climb on a tractor or up in the haymow and work til evening milking, then milk again, then maybe get on a tractor again....they found easier work elsewhere. It wasn't the pay, because our boss paid really well.


It is a well-known fact that̶ I̶ ̶a̶m̶ ̶b̶o̶s̶s̶y̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶h̶e̶c̶k̶ delegate tasks quite well.


Which I suppose may be behind what happened one day. I had milked both milkings with the trainee of the day. We didn't really get along all that well....I must admit that he was not my favorite kid to work with and I wasn't sorry when he inevitably moved along to greener pastures far away from real pastures. Guess I wasn't his favorite either.


Anyhow at the end of the day the boss kindly drove me to the grocery store. We shopped. I paid (we were only dating at the time.) I went to put the receipt in the back pocket of the clean jeans I had left hanging in the barn storage room so I could change after work.


There was already something there. It was soft and about the size of the plastic baggies I carried my lunch of diced apples to work in. I pulled it out to throw it away.


It was not a plastic bag.


It was a dead mouse last seen curled up on the storage room floor.


I screamed and flung the thing high in the air to the amazement of fellow shoppers and cash register girls. There was no question at all how it had found its way into my pocket.....




The boss was eager to track down my coworker, with mayhem on his mind (today he would point and laugh) but we threw the mouse in the trash and slunk out of the store... embarrassed half to death at my girly display.

The river is running fast and full of ice

No mayhem has ever been wreaked over the incident...but I have not forgotten.....