Got your attention, didn’t it? Writers are always encouraged to have a good opening line…Anyway, I recalled the “worst thing in my pants” issue when I was picking flowers the other day, skipping merrily through the field, bluebirds circling overhead…no, wait. I forgot. That was all ruined by the worst thing in my pants. I can’t go into the garden without great trepidation any more…ever since…(insert your favorite scary music here).

 

A couple of years ago, my cousin was getting married, and, since I have a nice big garden, I offered to do her flowers. It was going to be gorgeous. Mason jars brimming with zinnias and cosmos, black-eyed susans and roses. But I found that I needed a bit more filler, so my husband, kids and I traipsed down the street to a big field where lots of pretty wildflowers grew.

 

It was so picturesque…me, the DH, our lovely kids picking flowers. The sun shone overhead, the grasshoppers jumped merrily about…quite a few grasshoppers, actually. It had been a dry summer, and they were out in droves.

 

I was wearing jeans. Everyone else, shorts. When I felt the little tickle at my ankle, I just figured it was a grasshopper. I gave my foot a little shake, and the tickle stopped. A second later, there it was again. I shook my foot more vigorously. Yuck. Didn’t want a grasshopper in my pants, after all. I’m not squeamish about bugs, but come on. No one wants a bug in her pants, right?

 

Then the tickle…moved. It…climbed. Up the calf, almost to my knee.Wow, I thought. That’s some determined grasshopper. I grabbed the excess fabric of my pant leg and shook it hard. Surely the grasshopper’s little legs couldn’t withstand that kind of earthquake action. Surely it had fallen out.

 

And then…and then…the tickle moved. It…crawled. It crawled upward. “Honey?” I said, adrenaline flooding out in gallons. “Honey?” The dear husband looked at me. The tickle moved. It…ran. Higher. Straight up the old pant leg. Past the knee. Up further. And further still. “Honey? HONEY!” I shrieked.

 

There was a lump on my leg. A moving lump. “Something’s in my pants!” I screamed. The lump zipped around to the back of my leg and right across my butt (the jeans were loose, dang it all). It circled around to the front again, getting perilously, er, personal.

 

That was it. I yanked open my jeans and pulled them down. “Mommy, those people can see your underwear,” my daughter observed, pointing to a house nearby. I barely heard her, as I was busy screaming.

 

There, in my pants, was a mouse. In hindsight, it wasn’t that big, really. It was a field mouse. But then, when it was in my pants, it was monstrous. Terrified that it would seek shelter deeper in my pants, I froze. Our eyes locked. Perhaps motivated by abject terror, it decided to escape. It…leaped. Onto my shirt. And with a shriek that could be heard for a good half mile, I flung that little rodent far, far away.

 

Having a mouse in your pants…well, it’s not the worst thing that could happen. But for weeks thereafter, I jerked out of a sound sleep, certain there was a mouse in our bed. And gardening, obviously, hasn’t been the same since.

 

So…anyone else have a good mouse story? Or anything else that gave you the heeby-jeebies?

 

Kristan

www.kristanhiggins.com