The tale of the beauty and the beast

BY PETUNIA PAP SMEAR

The road to the pantry is fraught with danger and excitement.

It was a dark and stormy night. The wind was howling out of the north and the snow was swirling into tsunami-size drifts. I was snugly ensconced in the warm and cozy basement of Chateau Pap Smear, seated at the computer desk busily attempting to keep up on my life’s vocation — the sorting of all the porn on the internet.

While “working” I was keeping half an eye on the television located on a shelf above the computer. (I can multitask!) In the middle of deciding whether a photo of a certain admirable Speedo-clad adonis should be sorted into the “Well-Packed Spandex” folder or the “Oh-My-God ABS” folder, I sensed a disturbance in the force.

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I noticed some movement. As I was home alone, I thought I might be having a spiritual visitation from Judy Garland. A few minutes and 15 photos later, it happened again. I thought that the light from the TV must have been casting shadows through my mascara.

The next day, I was again at the computer desk when my mascara was vindicated. I saw with my own eyes, a mouse run from the laundry room into the fruit room. Yes, Chateau Pap Smear is one of those little old brick grandma bungalows, and like most Mormon homes, it has a food storage room, otherwise commonly called a “Fruit Room”.

Timidly, I ventured into the fruit room. Using the lights from my breasticles to shine on the shelves in the dark corners, I looked around and saw to my horror that the rangy rodent had gotten into my sacred stash of Ramen noodles. I felt so violated. A sense of defilement began to well up in my breasticles. Nothing shall ever come between a queen and her noodles.

I found a lot of mouse turds on the top shelf, so I moved stuff about in search of the animal. Low and behold to my shock and horror, the malevolent mammal actually leaped from the top shelf over my beehive hair to a lower shelf on the opposite wall. Who knew they could jump that far? I could have sworn it was wearing a cape and cried, “Here he comes to save the day!” It was indeed a Mighty Mouse.

Thwarted by this first attempt at capture, but disgusted at the quantity of mouse poo left behind, I grabbed my Electrolux and gave the fruit room a good douching. I removed the opened and contaminated noodle packs and threw them in the garbage can beside the computer desk. The next day, I was sitting at the desk and I thought I heard rustling. I raised my maximus buttockus out of my chair and turned on the light in the fruit room in an attempt to catch the little bugger in the act. Nothing! As I sat back down, the vermin jumped out of the garbage can, not five inches from my knee and ran away. Did I scream? Hell yes!

On another occasion, while descending the stairs, I saw the nasty little nutter run under the door into the closet where I keep my coats. I flung open the door endeavoring to catch it, only to find that it had escaped. I investigated the closet for clues. I discovered that the little bitch had eaten a huge hole in the lining of my fulllength fur coat. THIS MEANT WAR!

Livid with righteous indignation, I armed myself for battle. In one hand I held one of my breasticles from my Petunia Closet (the one and only true and everlasting “Fruit Room”) to trap the creepy critter. In the other hand I wielded a golden stiletto with which to spear and or pummel the little rat. All I found were more droppings.

Time to build a better mouse trap! I devised an obstacle course for the little hamster wannabe. I took from my closet all eighteen pairs of breasticles and placed them over each of the perishable food items creating a confusing maze. The fruit room began to resemble a miniature Christmas forest display. At the far end of the forest, I placed some delicious poison. Surely, this should do the trick. After several days of this stake out, the poison was left untouched but the breasticle forest was littered with more droppings. I was in Hell! I was quickly becoming a Desperate Drag Queen. My inner detective instincts began to emerge. I noticed that there was no evidence at all of mouse infestation in the Petunia Closet. What could possibly be in there that might be repelling the nasty beast? Of course, glitter!

Glitter is the never-ending, non-biodegradable infestation of another kind. So, I unwrapped a Ramen noodle and buried it as bait in a pond of blue glitter at the end of the breasticle forest. A few days later, there was no more evidence of the mouse. Success! Of course I had to do a little victory hopscotch-like dance over the breasticle forest.

This story leaves us with several important questions:

1. How best should I disinfect any possible contamination of all the breasticles?

2. Should I begin teaching proper food storage techniques in the Relief Society homemaking lessons?

3. Would marking my territory by peeing in the corners be a better mouse deterrent than glitter?

4. Should I pitch the television show Desperate Drag Queens to CBS?

5. Did my glitter trap work, or was it because I called a professional exterminator? 6. Should I apply for a job with Orkin?

These and other eternal questions will be answered in future chapters of The Perils of Petunia Pap Smear.