Calling Card

Our new drapes are lovely. It's true that with the Christmas tree my funky little sister is overwhelmed by the amount of girliness in the house, but I think when the purple velvet curtains aren't next to a sparkly tree they will look more classy and less diva. I went to close them the other night to take advantage of the way they help retain the heat on these snowy winter evenings. As I reached for the left panel, my hand froze. There was a mouse peeking out from under the curtain!

"Oh my god! Lesha! There is a mouse! I think it might be dead. It's not moving."

Lesha called back from where she was doing her hair in the bathroom: "Do you know what I did last time I saw a mouse? I got on a table and screamed."

"Well, great. Now what do we do?" I called from the far side of the living room of the mouse.

She left the bathroom, walked in the living room, and climbed on the coffee table. From the relative safety of her perch she said, "It's not moving. It's either fake or dead."

"I think it's fake. Throw something at it."

"Give me something to throw at it!" Seeing me reach for a couch cushion, she shouted, "Not something that can get diseased!" She picked up our coffee table book and throw it in the general direction of the mouse. "It didn't move."

"It's fake! Marc did it! He's evil!"

She threw another book at it. "It's totally fake," she said, "but I am so not going over there." She climbed off the coffee table and went back to finish doing her hair. I started looking around for the candid camera guy to come out from behind the house plant.

"We are ridiculous," I said.

Later that night my uncle Marc called. "Marc, you didn't happen to leave behind a friend of yours when you were hanging out curtains, did you?"

"Oh, did you find it?" he laughed. "That's my calling card. I leave it behind at all my jobs."

"Lovely, you big meanie."

He just laughed. After two hours and official confirmation, I finally was confident enough to pick up the mouse that I knew was fake. The curtains look even more glamorous now.