Unlike many of you stay at home mothers, I have a lot of time on my hands. My children are school aged monsters, so I merrily shove them onto the little yellow bus of freedom and then scratch my head and wonder how I am to fill my day. Sure I could clean my house, or bake cookies, or even go get a daytime job, but none of that really appeals to me. Instead, I write, I blog and I go to restaurants with my pregnant buddy and bitch about our husbands.

(Don’t worry, Boo, I only complain about your absence. I would never complain about the fact you can’t pick up your own socks, wouldn’t know what to do with an empty milk jug if your life depended on it or how you think that when you are home the world should stop and revolve around you. I just whine about how much I miss you. Promise.)

During my free hours of the day, while I wait for the phone to ring and the nice adoption people to tell me they have found the perfect disabled baby to give me, I read a lot of interesting items on the internet. Because everyone knows everything you read on the ole interweb is true, right?

I stumbled upon this ditty the other day. An interesting little article based on a study which claims the average person tells two lies every ten minutes. That, my dear internet friends, is a staggering 288 lies per person, per day.

Holy Pinocchio! Could it be true? Could we really be a bunch of serial perjurers? How do we trust anything anyone says? Are we really this dishonest? But then when you start to think about all the nontruths, white lies, omissions, exagerrations and my personal favorite, sarcasm, I suppose it starts to add up.

Because I am a bored housewife, I took it upon myself to prove this theory wrong. No matter what, I was going to tell the truth. I was filled with resolve. I was going to be completely honest if it killed me. At first it was easy. Nixon, the World’s Greatest Dog, Ever. inspires honesty. And he doesn’t ask a lot of questions. That helps. But then, the first challenge of the day arose. The hubs asked if I got his text message. Phew, that was an easy one. I told him I did. But then he wanted to know why I didn’t text him back. Ummmm…shit!!! But remembering my resolve, I told him the truth. I told him the text annoyed me and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

Which of course I did, by telling him the text annoyed me. I’m off to a great start. He couldn’t understand how him texting me a ridiculously mushy message in which he pours out his feelings of love could possibly annoy me.

Um, hello! I’m heartless. You think he’d know this already.

After some fancy footwork, I extricated myself out of a possible argument. But I had to employ avoidance, nontruths and a variety of other tools of deception. I’m a fibber at heart.

That messy phone call had me wondering all the other times I have lied to protect my ass. I tell the kids on a regular basis that I love their singing, when the reality is they sound like they are either in pain or in heat. I tell them I love the pictures they draw for me, but while I love the fact they adore me and wish to please me (why isn’t the rest of the world not similarly devoted to my every need?) I don’t really think they are the next great artists of the future. Even if I encourage them to believe they may be. Then I had a horrifying thought. What about all the times I have been lied to? What if I’m not really as clever as I think? Does my husband really think that I’m the sexiest thing in the world? What if my friends don’t think I’m the funny one? What if my nose ring isn’t half as cute as I think it is?

But then I realised I was just being silly. People wouldn’t lie to me about these things to protect my feelings? Right?

Right????

On the whole, I like to pride myself on my honesty. Even when it hurts. Or is painful to hear. I’m not always the favorite person at family gatherings because I tend not to ignore the elephant in the room. And I know a few people who disagree with my decision to always tell my kids the truth. Because honesty is the cornerstone of morality.

I’ll admit, I have told a fib or two to avoid confrontation, or to avoid deflating an already fragile ego. When the cashier asks how I’m doing at the grocery store, I certainly don’t launch into a diatribe how I seem to be stuck in a rut of grief, that I’m retaining water weight and my parents aren’t speaking to me. I simply say I’m well and then change the subject. “How bout those produce prices?”

But I have also told a fib or two for my own amusement. Like the time I let my husband walk around all day with his fly open. People laughed and snickered at him all day long until he noticed. (All right, I was the one laughing and snickering…)

Or the time I told my sister that shirt looked good on her. But damn it, I’m still ticked that she had a bigger rack on her when she was 13 than I did at 16.

Or the time that my best friend asked if she had any spinach in her teeth, and I said no. Which was really hard to do with a straight face when that nasty green piece stuck in front kept winking at me.

Being honest 100 percent of the time is not always easy or fun.

And that’s the truth. Would I lie to you?

I have a secret. I have carried this secret, no, this heavy burden with me for ten years. Exactly ten years. It hasn’t been easy, but it has always been fun. Because, what is more fun than holding a secret above someone’s head, and dangling it like a carrot? Watching someone twist and turn, and wonder whether I would spill the beans or keep my word. Today, all of that promise keeping has flown out the window. I’m going public with my secret knowledge.

It all happened on a dark and stormy night, February 22, 1997. It was snowing hard, and I was alone with my five month old darling Fric. I was living out in the country at Boo’s family home. An old, dilapidated farm house that creaked more than my knees do first thing in the morning. I was a city girl, transplanted out to the sticks. I jumped at every sound, feared every howl carried on the wind.

Suddenly, there were two pinpricks of light coming up our very long and twisty driveway. I grew nauseous, and it wasn’t because I was almost two months pregnant with Frac. (Yep, we got busy quick after the birth of Fric.) I kept walking over to check on my beautiful baby, sleeping soundly in her heirloom cradle, while keeping my eye on the headlights in the driveway.

It seemed as though the headlights weren’t getting any closer to the house. My anxiety level shot through the roof. I paced back and forth, willing this invisible car to disappear into the blackness of night and out of my driveway. Slowly the lights grew closer, as this black car crept forward, hampered by all the snow that had drifted into the lane by the fierce winds of the winter storm. I couldn’t make out the occupants, but I knew who they were and why they were here.

After what seemed like an eternity, mainly because they kept having to stop the car and shovel out, the car of doom pulled up beside the ramshackle farm house and I held my breath, waiting, waiting, and waiting.

Nothing. I was ignored. I grew more antsy with every minute that ticked past on the old brass clock. Where were they? I wondered. Where did they go? It was freezing outside, dark and cold; surely the winter storm would chase them into the house soon.

Abruptly the porch door flew open, slamming against the wall. Fric startled at the loud sound, awakened from her reverie of sugar plums and fairy dances. As I hurried over to scoop her up, I could hear the hushed voices in the next room, the stamping of feet in an attempt to loosen the snow that clung to their shoes.

Cooing to Fric and smelling the sweet scent of sleep that clung to her smooth baby skin, I looked up and tried to smile through my fear. It was the Great White Hunter and his girlfriend, Martha Freakin Stewart. I looked at the Hunter and questioned him with my eyes. He nodded and smiled.

I looked at Martha and asked how she was. I don’t remember her response, but I remember the glint from the new diamond she was sporting on her left hand. The Great White Hunter came home to ask his love to be his wife. During a snow storm, inside the sagging roof of the rundown barn.

How romantic. (Said as I roll my eyes heaven ward.)

(To be fair, he certainly did better than his brother who just weeks before popped the question to me on his knee after I came out of the bathroom. From having my insides fall out. Sigh. Such a wonderful memory.)

The only problem with The Great White Hunter’s romantic proposal, which I knew was coming because he thoughtfully fore warned me earlier in the day, was there was a large, dead and decomposing animal in the barn.

Boo’s prize milk cow, Beauty, whom we used to ride like a pony, up and kicked the bucket shortly before Christmas of 96. Boo was devastated over this loss, as I do believe Beauty was his first real love. (Not that kind of love people. Sheesh!) Boo was overcome with grief and exhausted from lack of sleep from having a new infant daughter in the house, and he just kept putting off the call to the rendering company. I like to think he was sad to see her go, the reality is, ten years of marriage and I know my darling hubs was just too damn lazy to get off his ass to make the call.

I’m not bitter or anything.

I spent most of the afternoon and the evening wringing my hands with worry. What would Martha Freakin Stewart do when she saw a dead bovine, rotting on barn floor? What would The Great White Hunter say? What pretty words of romance could cover up the stench of death?

Turns out, winter was on my side. Beauty was partially frozen and only smelled when the temperature reached above zero. Which was not an issue on that snowy night. As for the flowery words that convinced Martha to tie her wagon to that particular ox, I couldn’t tell you. I never asked. I could only assumed she got sucked in by the beauty of his genetics, much the same way I did with his little brother.

Somehow, The Great White Hunter managed not only to convince this clever and beautiful woman to be his wife, but he did it while manoeuvring her so that our deceased farm pet was not visible from her vantage point. I never had to worry about her reaction or the fact that my darling Boo’s dead cow killed his brother’s romance.

The Hunter managed to extract a promise to me to keep my mouth shut, and I agreed. But I told him my lips were buttoned for a finite amount of time. And the expiration date to this secret is now up. I’m shouting from the roof tops and letting the world know about the dumb asses I’m attached to. One I married, the other I tease and try to ignore on a fairly regular basis.

How’s that for some romance? Rotting carcasses, snowstorms, frigid temperatures and dilapidated barns. They say every family has it’s secrets. Not ours, not anymore.

I feel so liberated.

But damn, what can I torture him about for the next ten years now?

And for those who wonder, the rendering truck was called the very next day so that I never had to worry about someone else stumbling upon the skeleton in our barn.

My house is in panic mode, currently under lockdown. Why? Because there is a mouse in my house. (Hee hee, that sounds so dirty when I say it.) And there is only room enough under this roof for one type of rodent. One of us has to go. And seeing as how I’m bigger, it’s time for Stuart Little to pack up and find new digs. I am not adopting a mouse. I spent most of Monday and all of yesterday with one mission in mind: Mouse murder. But I am not exactly schooled in the black arts of pest control, so I had some learning to do.

Warning: be careful of the Google when typing in mouse, mice, trap, or mouse control. You would think I’d have landed on some reputable rodent killing sites or perhaps the odd computer geek site, but no, surprisingly not. Apparently, when someone asks if you’ve clicked your mouse lately, they are referring to you er, lady parts.

I was educated. But not in rodent control.

Finally, with some luck and some perseverance, I found what I needed to know. Now it was for supplies. After walking into one of the big box hardware stores, I was stunned. I stared at row after row of pest control. Who knew there were so many ways to off a furry little mammal. I wasn’t sure if I was up to this.

Poison was out, because with my luck my nephew, the Worm, or Nixon, the World’s Greatest Dog, Ever. would find it and eat it, thereby poisoning themselves, leaving me with untold amounts of guilt, a dead loved one and still a mouse in my house. (Still sounds dirty when I type it, hee hee.)

Those damn sticky tabs where the mouse walks on them and is stuck, starving to death just freak me out. Back in the days of my youth, when I managed a movie theatre to pay for school, we had an exterminator come in once a month for pest control. Those sticky tabs were his weapon of choice. At the time I thought they were cool, until I came upon one, with a mouse attached. Poor thing had ripped off his face in his attempt to free himself. It was an image I could live with out and have no need of experiencing again.

As I sat there, baffled and bewildered by all the choices before me, I was beginning to feel overwhelmed. I shook myself out of my moment of self-pity and reminded myself that there were vermin living in my NEW home; vermin carrying all types of disease and filth. I may call myself a redneck, but I am a clean freak redneck. No mouse is going to tarnish that image.

I had visions of getting out the hubs gun and going Rambo on his furry little ass. But then I remembered reading this article and decided to leave the guns locked up in the gun safe. With my luck, I’d do worse than that dumb ass Donald did. If only I were blessed with my sister’s aptitude for rodent execution. She has a gift for being able to off the furry little creatures with out even trying.

It all started when she was eight years old and trying to clean her gerbil cage. She put both her precious pets in a bucket while she cleaned the cage. The little buggers managed to climb out of the bucket and scurry away in a mad dash for freedom. She yelled for me to come help, and me being the darling 11 year old I was, moseyed along, not terribly concerned by the panic in her voice. I happened upon her just in time to see her trip on her socks (which weren’t pulled up properly) and land on her knees. With one gerbil under each knee. Twitching. She was horrified and I couldn’t stop laughing. I still smile when I remember that image…hee hee.

Alas, that wasn’t a gift I inherited. I was going to have to do this the old fashioned way. But I knew that with a regular mouse trap, there would be problems. I’d live in fear of hearing that dreaded ‘Snap!’ as it crushed the neck of some unsuspecting mouse. There would be no way I could bring myself to dispose of the carcass, and I don’t think I’d be able to bribe my chitlens to do it for me.

That left me with only one option. The mouse house. (I can see my husband rolling his eyeballs now.) The little critter can mosey on in, and voila! Problem solved. It will be like a science project for Fric and Frac. They will have an up close opportunity to study some wild life, before I drop him off at the neighbour’s yard, I mean outside.

Forty smackers later, and I was the proud owner of my first mouse trap. Now the battle begins. It is on, little mouse. Our own little version of Patriot Games.

Bring it little rat, let’s see who wins.

BWHAHAHAHAHA