The Cannoli and the Mouse

Yesterday was also a good day to be almost-two and disgusting.

We went to buy cat food. The store has these chi-chi dog biscuits shaped like cookies and bon bons and what not, complete with little bakery-style bags and napkins to put them in.

A decided to take a big bite out of a cannoli-shaped dog biscuit, which I then bought in mortification. He almost took a bite out of a faux sugar cookie, but the sales girl told me, "It's okay, I'll just rub the teethmarks out of it," when I offered to buy that one as well.

Anyway, if that wasn't disgusting enough, then we went to the zoo. On one of the paths, there's a catchbasin filled with water, and A likes to throw a leaf or two in there when we walk by.

Yesterday, he throws a leaf in and looks down and picks up something else and is about to throw it in when I realize what it is: a dead mouse. Actually, it's a small dead rat, but it could have been a large mouse. Maybe.

So I scream, "No, no, no, no, no," like a banshee, make him drop it, then keep his hand firmly in my grip while I pull the stroller over and rummage one-handed through the diaper bag for the Purell. A begins to cry.

A nice woman with two kids who saw this whole incident stopped and took A's arm and kept him occupied while I looked for hand sanitizer. I found it and doused him with half the bottle. Then I washed his hands at the next bathroom. And I took him to First Aid, where they basically said, "Oh, dead mouse, well, wash his hands with warm water, that's about it." I think they had just gotten through a macaw biting someone, so I understand they were preoccupied.

As a fun fact, the zoo apparently keeps a virologist on staff to study disease vectors in vermin deaths.

I'll be happier when A develops a disgust factor. Yup.