My family lives in a moderately large and rapidly growing suburban district. That point of information is largely irrelevant to today's story, except for the fact that, living in as developed a community as ours, we aren't very familiar with seeing many wildlife creatures near the vicinity of our residential area. A chipmunk on the side of the road is reason enough to slow down and take notice; A jackrabbit hopping about the underbrush at the back of the yard calls for group observation and maybe even a camera. We just aren't very used to seeing wildlife creatures beyond the common squirrels and pigeons that seem to be rampant even in the most industrialized parts of the country. We just aren't familiar with seeing such "exotic" animals making their habitats so close to our home.

And especially not inside our house.

I am probably the most squeamish out of our family when it comes to unidentified footloose organisms. There was a time when I would spot a worm or caterpillar squirming around the garage and would willingly, even enthusiastically, pick it up and examine it. Those days are long past, though, so when I was on the computer early last Friday morning, commenting on an article to my mom, who was fixing a curtain rod at the window next to me, I was more than a little unsettled when, out of the corner of my eye, something small and dark skittered out from a corner of the room and crawled underneath the couch behind me.

My mom and I stared at each other, searching each other's eyes desperately for a sign we were crazy and had just been seeing things. But no, we had both seen it.

"What was that?" we asked in unison, slowly turning our heads toward the sofa. Whatever it was, it was hiding under there.

"Did the boys go to school yet? Did Dad leave for work?" was the next thing I asked, for it was a vital piece of information. There was no way I was going near that sofa.

"David's still here," my mom said, stepping cautiously toward the couch, crouching in an effort to see beneath it. "Go call him up. Quick."

I tip-toed frantically across the family and down the basement stairs; If there was one varmin skuttling around our living space, then there could very well be more, and I for one did not want to find out by squelching it beneath my foot.

"David!" I yelled once I was withing screaming distance of his room. "Mom wants you, hurry!"

"O-kay." David came out of his bedroom and strolled casually toward the stairs, taking even, cool strides.

"I said HURRY!" I bellowed. He quickened is pace a tad.

When we finally got upstairs, my mom had gotten a flashlight and was shining it beneath the couch, trying to spot the critter.

"Okay," she said once we entered the room, "I think it's a doormouse. Someone help me lift the sofa."

"A mouse? Are you sure?" David walked over to the other end of the couch and grabbed on to the arm.

"Wait!" I said, climbing up the back of an overstuffed chair. "What happens when you lift the sofa? It'll just dash throughout the house!"

My mom pondered this for a moment before telling me to go get two child safety gates from out of the basement. It was another frantic journey on tiptoe, and then we sealed off the openings around the perimeter of the room.

"Okay now," my mom said, squatting down to pick up her end of the couch. "David, you bend down and take that end, and we'll lift on three."

David hesitantly bent down to grasp the edge of the sofa. "Are you sure it's a mouse?"

"Just lift!" my mom said. "One, two, THREE!"

"See anything?" my mom asked.

"No," I replied, peering down from my perch atop the chair.

"No rodents?"

"A few dust bunnies."

My mom set the sofa down. "Okay," she said, "I'm going to lift this end, and I want you and David to look underneath once more. See if it climbed up into a crack or something."

Cringes racing up my spine, I slowly stepped off my fortress and over to the couch.

"Okay," my mom said. "Look!"

David and I tilted our heads and scanned the bottom of the sofa, expecting to see some creature clinging awkwarding to the fabric in an effort to stay concealed. But there was nothing.

"Where could it have gone?" I asked. Maybe we had been seeing things after all.

"No, I think it climbed inside the mattress," my said. The sofa was a foldout.

We cleared the pillows and pulled out the attached cot, and sure enough, something small and dark fell to the floor.

And raced behind the bookshelf.

We definitely weren't imagining things; David had seen it too this time. We pulled to bookshelf out to find only more dust bunnies, which meant that the critter was hiding underneath. We pulled it out more, and out it raced again, this time toward an exit where, unfortunately in the excitement, the barring gate had fallen down.

The mouse--we were certain by now that it was a mouse--was now in the kitchen. Behind the pantry.

What followed was nightmarish and draining. David had to leave for school, which meant it was only females left in the house.

After half an hour of prodding we were finally able to shoo the mouse out from behind the pantry where it had hidden. But our incompetence (OK, my incompetence. I was supposed to hold the net still, but I freaked when the mouse brushed against my hand) allowed it to escape beneath the stove.

"You act like a bunch of girls!" my mom barked after I botched up the trap.

No, duh. Pardon me for my lack of manliness.

To make a long story short, or at least not longer than it already is, our search beneath the stove ended in vain, with the mouse disappeared from view. Coincidentally, we had some Mice Cube "humane" traps in our garage that my dad had bought at a time when we had no use for them. We did then, of course, so we set them up according to the directions and went back to our normal routine, hoping that eventually the mouse would come out and be tempted by the smell of peanut butter, becoming trapped so that we could safely release it outdoors where it belongs.

It's been four days and we haven't seen it since.

Either it's devised a scheme of scavenging by night and sneaking into seclusion by day, or it's somehow been able to get out of the house completely without our knowledge, or-- and this is what I'm sincerely hoping has not happened--it died in some far and covert crevace that I shall happen to stumble upon one day while cleaning up my room.

For its sake, and mine, I hope it ran far, far, away.

 

Day 1 – The Rehearsal

We left our house on Friday, the day of the rehearsal, which was to take place at 5 o’clock that evening. Our initial plan had been to leave no later than one o’clock, hopefully getting to Maryland in time to stop at my grandparent’s house for an hour or so, and then follow them to the church where the rehearsal would take place. Unfortunately, late as always, we ended up leaving our house a little after two in the afternoon. This shouldn’t have posed too large a problem, since one o’clock was a bit earlier than was absolutely necessary for us to get to Maryland on time, but, as usual, we failed to give an allowance for any traffic we might encounter along the way. Which we did, a not a small amount either.

Thus ensued a labyrinth of detours in an attempt to bypass the overabundance of cars that seem to appear just when our travel deadlines are the most stringent. The ride was actually very pleasant otherwise though: no screaming babies, no bathroom breaks (miraculously). Although, my little brother did get carsick once – thankfully we keep a small trash can available for such cases as those. Oh, and we did have to make a few stops when my dad’s boss called to see how things were going. You see, we had to leave Friday afternoon, and my dad was still technically supposed to be working. While his job is flexible to an extent, and he does most of his work while on the road, he’s still not really supposed to be taking road trips to family wedding rehearsals when he’s supposed to be making sales to clients, which was exactly what he was doing, unbeknownst to his boss. Hence the pit stops whenever my dad’s boss found it convenient to check up, since the sounds of ten kids talking and laughing in the background would undoubtedly give us away.

We ended up getting to Maryland around 4:30, too late to stop at my grandparents house. That meant that we were on our own in finding the church, which we did. Eventually. We got there just in the nick of time, if not five minutes late, which turned out not to be too bad, since most of the rest of the wedding party arrived at the exact same time that we did.

We went inside the church and exchanged the usual hugs and such with relatives. Along with that we met some other people who, though not relatives at the time, would be after the wedding the next day.

The rehearsal went well for the most part. It took about four tries for us to get everything perfect, so it did start to get a little tedious and slightly annoying near the end, especially since most of us hadn’t eaten since early that afternoon. The photographer, who would make several more appearances throughout the next day, got plenty of nice, toothy smiles at the beginning, but I’m afraid that towards the end of the rehearsal he had to make do with significantly less cheerful expressions.

Finally, though, we had gone through the routine enough times to know it down pat, finally we were dismissed, and finally all of us went to our respective cars to drive to Famous Dave’s Bar-B-Que house for the rehearsal dinner.

Initially, my aunt had wanted the dinner to be at the Cheesecake Factory restaurant, but they didn’t offer reservations for our sized party. Famous Dave’s did, though, and promised that our tables and food would be ready at 6:30 p.m.

We arrived at the restaurant at 6:30 on the dot, eager to be able to immediately sit down and eat at the tables that had been reserved for us. Only, it didn’t quite work out that way…

When we got inside and asked for our reserved tables, the staff informed us that only one out of our seven tables was vacant; the other six were still in use. They assured us though that everything would be ready for us shortly. The word “shortly,” I’ve come to find out, has very strange interpretations among certain people, particularly certain personnel hired to work at certain “famous” barbeque restaurants. In short, what the hostess really meant when she said that our tables would be ready “shortly” was that we would have to wait standing up in the crowded lobby for 45 minutes before all of us would be able to sit down and eat. And this with reservations. My grandfather used to manage the entire food service department of a large theme park, and he was no slacker. Let’s just say that he doesn’t take poor service lightly, especially when it’s food related. Uh, yeah. He let them know EXACTLY what he thought of their service, and it was not very pretty, I can assure. They lamely compensated us with free appetizers, which had all been eaten by the time I was able to sit down, but oh well.

The food was OK though. Standard. Each table was supplied with a smorgasbord tray of standard barbeque fare, including barbequed ribs, marinated chicken, corn muffins, coleslaw, baked beans, fries, and…uh, that’s it. It was good, but standard, like I said. The fries were probably the most non-typical food on the tray, and there aren’t very many variations you can do with fries. I’m really not sure what, exactly, makes Famous Dave’s so “famous.” Certainly not their adequacy in providing reserved tables on time.

After the meal my aunt passed out thank-you gifts to all the members of the wedding party. Us bridesmaids were presented with lovely monogrammed pearl-and-crystal bracelets; the flower girls received teddy bears from Build-A-Bear, outfitted with white wedding dresses and veils; I’m not sure what the groomsmen got, but my grandfather was given a gorgeous looking cigar lighter that’s wind and water resistant: if you the flame out it immediately reappears. I kind of wanted one myself, and I don’t even smoke.

I also gave my new cousin’s mother a portrait of my cousin that I had been asked to draw. She loved it, so I was quite happy. Actually, several people loved it, and I now have three more portrait jobs to do, and larger ones at that.

After dinner we left the restaurant and got ready to go to the hotel that we would be staying at. I was kind of excited because I’d never stayed in a hotel before, and the one that my grandfather had gotten for us had a four-star rating. But that’s to be expected, seeing as how my grandfather manages the hotel. The only thing that keeps it from being a five-star is that it isn’t outfitted quite so gaudily and outrageously as some of the extremely expensive resorts.

We got to the hotel around 9 o’clock, and the younger kids were all good and tired by then, so my dad brought them straight up to our room while the rest of us unloaded the van. My uncle (or uncle-to-be back then) helped us load our necessities onto a little dolly-or-whatever-you-call-those-gold-coatrack/platform-things-on-wheels, and we went inside and took the elevator up to our floor.

Our room was a small apartment.

No, a large one. I’ve lived in an apartment that was half the size of the room that we stayed in. Actually, it was three rooms, complete with kitchen, dining area with room for 12, three full bathrooms, the same number of coat closets, and two each of king and queen-sized beds. Even for our size family, that room was hooked up. Of course, my brothers thought it was perfect solely due to the fact that the room also boasted three 42” flat-screen televisions.

My aunt and then uncle-to-be hung around for a few minutes while we unpacked, and my aunt went over the itinerary for the following day. We would come up to her room at around eleven, along with all the other bridesmaids (of which there were a total of six, including my mom and I), and have brunch and get our hair and makeup done.

After my aunt and her then-fiancé left around 9:30, the rest of us changed into pajamas performed various routine hygiene maintenance procedures. In other words, we brushed our teeth and combed our hair and whatnot. After that we explored every possible nook and cranny of our hotel room. The complimentary chocolates on the pillows were quickly and stealthily devoured. One of my siblings, who, like me, had never stayed in a hotel before, was appalled:

“*Megan*!” she shrieked at a younger sibling who was contentedly chewing an Andes mint. “You don’t eat candy that you just find laying around! You don’t know who put that there! Spit it out, spit it out!” It took me several minutes to explain how and why, exactly, the candy was on the pillow without us having placed it there before my sibling’s fears of poisoned chocolate were safely dispelled. After that she ate a few pieces herself.

We explored that options on the TV and discovered that we could watch movies that hadn’t yet come to DVD – for a price of about 13 dollars. We quickly learned that we had pretty much anything we wanted at our disposal, including Evian spring water and gourmet coffee in the bathroom – but again, all for a fairly steep price. At five dollars a bottle, we were forbidden to touch the water; after that I’m sure the younger kids regretted inhaling so much chocolate.

The TV did offer a few standard channels for free, though, and we took advantage of our rare television privileges and stayed up until about midnight watching the Disney Channel and “Remember the Titans” on TNN, which you may recall is one of my favorite sports movies. Oh yeah, our first night was sweet.

Stay tuned for Day 2:The Wedding…