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May 13, 2013
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
April 22, 2013
US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer
April 19, 2013
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy
Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds
April 17, 2013
Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom
Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
April 15, 2013
Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral
Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators
April 12, 2013
Mark Clayton: New cybersecurity bill: Privacy threat or crucial band-aid?
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jackie Robinson's Friend, Hank Greenberg; CNN's Jake Tapper; Texas County in the News is named for 19thC. Jewish soldier and Congressman
The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: FRUITY QUINOA STUFFED PEPPERS: A flavorful, colorful and edible vessel of delicately fluffy, mildly nutty filling combined with chewy apricots, tangy cherries, and crunchy pistachios
April 10, 2013
Peter Grier: North Korean missiles: Could US shoot them down?
Morgan Housel: Warning: Don't waste your capital being fooled by profit prophets
Donald Hensrud, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Take vitamin supplements with caution --- even approved, they may actually do damage
Eryn Brown: 74 DNA discoveries move cure closer for three cancers
April 8, 2013
Jonathan Tobin: What Part of No Preconditions Do American Jews Not Get?
Fred Weir: Is Putin finally trading his own party for a new power base?
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Jewish World Review
Dead mice tell no tales
By
Jim Mullen
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
"What's that smell?" Sue asked from the front hall. "Is that a dead mouse?"
Sometimes I cannot help myself. "Is it?" I said. "I just thought you were cooking dinner." Some people cannot take a joke. My shoulder still hurts.
"The Fergusons are coming for dinner at 6. I don't want people to think we have mice in the house."
"Then let's tell them it's a dead squirrel. Ouch! Would you please stop hitting me? I'm still sore from yesterday."
"I didn't touch you yesterday."
"You think you're the only one who hits me? I ran into Roger and Stacey in the grocery store yesterday and I said, 'What's new?' and she said, 'We're trying to have a baby.' She said it like they were trying to make their own sauerkraut at home."
"Well, for some people it's very difficult."
"I understand that, but for most people, it's not a Saturday morning chore. I can actually remember a time when you might not tell someone you were trying to have a baby."
"So she hit you?"
"No, Roger hit me. A friendly little tap on the shoulder. You want to see the bruise?"
"I can remember a time when he'd have hit you in the mouth. Thank goodness one of you has matured."
"Thank you."
"I was talking about Roger. Really, can one little mouse smell that bad? Maybe it is something bigger. An opossum, maybe. A raccoon."
"Oh, I just got a good whiff. I think we're talking about something much bigger. A deer. A cow. A hobo. Can't you light a candle or something to cover that up?"
"No one makes a candle that big. It'd have to be the size of the Liberty Bell. Besides, just knowing about it makes me sick. I can't eat here knowing something is decomposing in the cellar. Get down there and take a look around. If you can't find anything, I'll tell the Fergusons to meet us somewhere for dinner. We'll stay in a hotel tonight."
I haven't been down in that dank hole for weeks. It's where I put stuff that's too expensive to put in the trash but too hideous to display, as well as the summer lawn furniture and sports equipment. I know a lot of guys work on projects in their basements, or build rec rooms and family rooms down there, but I'm not one of them. I enjoy above-ground internment.
"Why don't you man up and go down there?" I asked Sue. "Ow! Stop that. It hurts."
When I was young we lived in a house that had a laundry chute. You'd throw your dirty clothes in it, and they'd land in a basket beside the washing machine. Except they didn't. They landed in a puddle on the basement floor where the laundry room used to be in the '30s, which I didn't find out until I asked my mother why I didn't have any more clean underwear. Ouch! That hurt.
The smell from the open basement door wasn't too bad. At the bottom of the steps, it was a little stronger. I pretended I was one of those people on "CSI," flashlight high in my left hand, the beam poking into corners, behind the water heater and the furnace. Nothing. But the smell was getting stronger.
Finally, I was right under the front hall. The only thing there was my golf bag, right where I left it after my last round before Thanksgiving. I moved it, and the smell exploded. There was a dark, watery stain down the side of one of the bag's outside pockets. I put my handkerchief over my nose and pulled down the zipper. The tuna wrap I had bought three months ago in the clubhouse and was going to eat on the way home rolled out. It might have lasted all winter if we hadn't had that warm spell last week.
I jumped back and hit my shoulder on a water pipe. Ouch! I went back upstairs and got a dustpan and a newspaper.
"I found it," I told Sue. "You're right; it was a dead mouse."
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Jim Mullen is the author of "It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life" and "Baby's First Tattoo."
Previously:
GOING PAPERLESS -- PRICELESS!
Should bad behavior be rewarded?
The perplexing problems of the rich and famous
Do these glasses make my gut look big?
More expensive by the dozen
In one year and out the other
Thank heaven it's Black Friday
Planning for the long term ---- tomorrow
READING THIS WILL MAKE YOU THIN AND HAPPY!
The Seven Secrets of Success
It's tough living off the gridIt's tough living off the grid
How not to clean the houseIt's tough living off the grid
The yellow badge of cowardice
Any way you slice it
Home sweet homeschooling
Don't Head for the Borders
Money ball
Golf and death go hand in hand
Tune in, turn off, unplug
The radar curtain
Is Steve Jobs clouding my privacy?
The gift of garbage
Johnny Intern, Ph.D.
Twenty-foot fences make good neighbors
You must remember this…
TV experts and real news
Hey caller, where's the fire?
My sad cushy life
Pacemaker, don't you mess around with me
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Flight of the snowbirds
This HDTV needs child support
Dear Future: Where's the dome?
Not so elementary, my dear Watson
A vacation revolution
Your call is very unimportant to us
Life: There's no app for that
Bam! Practical kitchen magic
Poisoning myself
Ban Huck Finn in schools --- even the sanitized version!
$38,000 for traffic and weather updates
2011 Predictions: Nostradamus was a hack
2010: A year of annoying junk
Why do bad things happen to stupid people? Moving on from movie theaters
Money never sleeps, but it does pass out
President Trump kept it classy
Stalking your college kid won't change a thing
Putting my life in Jeopardy
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iLostIt
Dressed for excess
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The mysteries of Jersey
You are a toilet, where am I?
Don't we all cheat at the game of life?
What happens when I forget where Google is?
Don't let the doorman hit you on the way out
Picasso fiasco
Purple (hair) Daze
Let me hear your body talk
Working from work
Babies deserve clean restrooms, too
3-year-old bear-killers are a thing of the past
Money-making ideas on the fly
Collecting and hoarding
Chain of fools
Please come pick up your acting awards, ESPN commentators, you've earned them
You've been superpoked by the U.S. gov't
e-Readin', e-Writin' and e-Rithmatic
A pose by any other name
Warning: Column contains 2010 spoilers
He loves only gold, only gold
Think about direction, wonder why …
Flushing your money down a diamond-studded toilet
More like wack Friday
The good, the ad and the ugly
The desert of the real
Let books be large and in charge
I was insulting people way before the Internet
GPS drill sergeant: Left, right, left!
Butterfly in the sky, you make winds go twice as high
Music to my ears it's not
You don't light up my life
Fair or not: Country living is far from Little House
A parable for the ages
Top 100 Cable news stories of the century
Green dumb
A developing story
Thinking outside the lunch box
What's good for the goose is good for the scanner
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A really big show of generation gaps
When pigs flu
The reports of our decline have been greatly exaggerated
Mergers and admonitions
Invest in gold: little, yellow, different
Stuck in Folsom Penthouse
Collecting karma
Setting loose the creative juice
It's all in the numbers
You're damaging your brain with practical skills
The real rat pack
The unspeakable luxury of the Park-O-Matic
Gross-ery shopping
© 2009, NEA
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