Of Mice and Men

As we celebrate our fathers today, I must share my story with you. Before we begin, happy father's day to all the dads out there!

Now, our tale begins at roughly 2:50AM Saturday morning but first, I need to bring you up to speed. In recent years, I've had increasing trouble with being able to wind down and go to sleep at the end of the day. Some days, I'm just too wound up from a busy day and some days, I have too much 'stuff' running through my mind. Either way, I tend to have a tough time going to sleep. This condition invariably causes late night channel surfing or computer card games, or sometimes, both. Last night was one of those nights. After channel surfing didn't help to bore me to sleep, I decided that, surely, a few tries at Spider Solitaire would definitely do it. That brings us to where the story begins. Picture it, late night (or early morning, depending on how you like to look at it), the constant flickering of the muted television, a small bedside lamp burning through the darkness of the night and the soft glow of my laptop laying on top of the bed. I had just made a stunning move on the game and was feeling pretty sure that I would win this round. In other words, I was way too into the computer! Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see a dark shadow zip in front of the mirror that is visible from my bed. Naturally, I thought I was finally getting sleepy enough that I was imagining things. However, I've seen one too many horror flicks to just let it go...oh, how I wish I had!

Slowly, I inched over to the side of the bed to prove to myself that there was nothing there. If this had been a Freddy or Jason movie, I would have been the stupid, curious white girl who decides to check out the noise coming from the abandoned barn while precariously balancing on high heels! You know, the chick that bites it in the first 5 minutes of the movie, that would have been me.

That's when I saw him! He shot back across the floor to hide behind my entertainment center. I've affectionately named him Saddam Hussein. Since he terrorized me, it seemed fitting. Saddam is a field mouse! A mouse in my house! Oh my goodness! It was all I could do not to lose control of my bladder right there in my bed! So there I sat, fighting my urge to scream and tickle at the same time and not knowing what to do otherwise.

Maybe I imagined that too, right? No way there's a mouse in my house! I'm just sleep deprived. I almost had myself convinced and calmed down, almost, that is until the little devil shot out from behind the entertainment center and UNDER MY BED! I'm not sure how many of you, as children, believed with all of your heart, like I did, that any monster that might be hiding under your bed would swiftly and quickly grab you and drag you straight to hell if you let your feet, arms or any other part of you hang off the bed or if you tried to make a run for it. I was even convinced that the shark from Jaws could somehow miraculously live without water under my bed and waited for me like I was chum in the water! Amazing, no matter how grown up you get, when there's a 'monster' under the bed, you're seven years old all over again!

Back to my dilemma, what was I gonna do about Saddam? After what seemed like an eternity, I decided to take my chances at escape. I am a little bigger now than I was at 7, so surely, I could fend of any attacker dragging me to the dark abyss, right? I pulled up into a crouching position in my bed and leaped for the door that led upstairs to where my parents were sound asleep. I'm not sure if I took the stairs two at a time or three. All I know is that I was banging on the bedroom door in less than a minute.

My poor father, it's a wonder that I didn't cause him to have a heart attack. I babbled incoherently about the gigantic rat that was taking over my house! Amazingly, not only had the vermin grown in size, but he had changed species as well. Is there ever a good way to wake up at 3AM? This was not one of the best ways, that's for sure.

My father, now my savior and hero, jumped into action as soon as he could get the sleep out of his eyes. Like a warrior, he went to battle for me. He was armed with a flashlight and a strong sense of protectiveness. I supported him (actually, watched from a distance) as he searched like Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. He looked high and low and then in a blast of arrogance, Saddam shot past him and made a break for it! Now, if you know my dad, you know that he protects the home against invaders of the rodent kind like a mother lion over her newborns. The search was on! At 3AM, he's pulling storage boxes out from under the bed and clearing clothes from the closet. He left no stone (or shoe or book) unturned. When he couldn't find Saddam in person, he decided to lure him out. In a matter of minutes, I had 6 well baited mouse traps placed strategically around the apartment. Needless to say, I did not spend the night in the apartment. My dad, my hero, not only gave up sleep in the middle of the night to stave off my stalker, but he helped me carry my pillows and blankets to a safe place to rest my weary head. We still haven't found the vile creature, yet, but I know my dad will. He's relentless. He will make it safe for me again.
Any man can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a daddy. A real man, a true daddy, will give up sleep, time, or money for his family. My daddy, my protector, my hero and my mouse killer. He'll always be the number one man in my life! Happy Father's Day, Daddy!
Love your little girl, Angie

Rebellion!

I read a quote today that made me think. "Learning is always rebellion...Every bit of new truth discovered is revolutionary to what was believed before."-Margaret Lee Bunbeck. Let that sink in a minute. What images pop into your head when you hear the word rebellion? Tattoos, piercings, alternate lifestyles, stealing, breaking the law, dropping out of high school? Have you ever considered education as a rebellion? Yeah, me neither. James Dean didn't pose with a textbook, it was a t-shirt and a motorcycle and he was the face of rebellion in the 50s. When did we lose sight of how to truly rebel? When did we decide to quit thinking for ourselves. We accept whatever truth that the loudest voice says. How do we know what the truth is?
Throughout history, it has never been the deviants who have led the greatest rebellions, it has always been those who choose to learn. Martin Luther was one of the world's biggest rebels, all because he choose to dig deeper intellectually rather than to accept what the Roman Catholic Church taught as truth. His education led to his rebellion from the accepted. His biggest rebellion? He translated the Bible from Latin to the language of the common people. He gave them the ability to educate themselves instead of having to accept what was being told to them by the controlling faction or by him. Can you say the same thing about yourself? When is the last time that you questioned the norm in an effort to become more educated; to become a rebel? Ironically, those who choose to do what everyone else is doing are in fact, part of the norm; the straight and narrow path. The mere fact that one chooses to follow blindly instead of questioning is the very action of being part of normal society. A bit of a slap in the face there, huh? The next opportunity that you have to make a choice, scare the world to death; make an education decision. Your rebellion may lead us all to a better community!