The One Where Mona Is Freaked Out

The older I get, the more I freak-facking-out.

Last night after the kids were in bed, I bagged up a bunch of returnable bottles (10 cents each in Michigan, baby, just like on “Seinfeld”) and stuck them in the living room, to take out to my car this morning. Sergei was on the PS2 in the living room, I was in the dining room paying bills, when the cat took an extraordinary liking to my bag of bottles. At first I thought she was just curious, as cats are, and I teased her about it (of course, to her, my voice sounds just like the grownups on Peanuts).

Then the cat started pawing at the bag.

Then I heard the distinct sound of struggle.

From INSIDE the bag.

Scritch scritch scratchscratchscratch.

FACK.

Something was struggling to get OUT of the bag.

I didn’t really want to know what it was.

Mouse? Rat? Hippopotamus?

It’s still too cold for bugs, so grasshoppers and frogs didn’t make my list of whosywhatsis.

But we DID catch some mice in the garage last fall. And I didn’t look in the half-full bag before I added more bottles to it. So something COULD have been taking a nap in there….

I hauled ass, holding the bag from the tippy-tippy-top like it was full of live bees, flung it in the garage, and slammed the door shut.

Back in the house, Sergei said, “You know, if you don’t want what’s INSIDE the bag to get OUTSIDE the bag and IN the garage, you might want to throw that bag outdoors. The cold weather will kill whatever’s in there.”

He was right, of course.

So I ventured BACK into the garage, unlocked the back door, picked up and DROPPED the bag UPSIDE DOWN (FACK!), looked around for mice or rodents or bees, found none, picked up the bottle bag with just two fingernails, and threw that disgusting bag of live whatevah and plastic soda bottles outside. (Panic after having “issues” with the back door, which refused to open all the way because of the other garage crap in there, and the thought of wild vermin crawling up the teeny tie-opening and up my arm and biting me made me want to scream like a little wussy girl.)

I don’t know what to do from here.

I have a bag of returnables worth, oh, 4 bucks in the back yard. If I take it to the store to cash them out, and something jumps OUT at me, I will pee my pants in front of strangers.

Or worse.

Can you give me some tips here? Should I stick my hand into a potentially dangerous bag o' dead animalia for money?