Well, I Certainly Learned Something

Things I have learned while cleaning out a preschool craft closet located in the very bowels of the church:

Mice are not nice, contrary to what cartoons may suggest.

NOT. CUTE.

"Good enough" really isn't good enough.

100+ year old buildings have many, many nooks and crannies in them.

Mice do not like rice.

But birdseed? That, they like. A lot.

If everyone treated everything like it was something precious to them, there would be less closets to clean out.

Please don't look in the closets at my house.

For some tasks, there just isn't enough chocolate.

The storage container companies should get together and make their lids interchangeable. 

If nearly everything from INSIDE a closet is piled OUTSIDE a closet, completely blocking the only exit, and if I should HAPPEN to see a mouse where I wasn't EXPECTING to see a mouse, I can find myself on the other side of that pile of closet contents without knowing how I got there.

Leaving LOTS AND LOTS OF BIRDSEED in a closet without putting it inside tightly sealed containers means you're just ASKING for it.

Powdered heavy-duty latex gloves suck all the moisture out of my hands.

Which is a conundrum, because they also make my hands sweat.

Glitter doesn't vacuum up very well. Neither does ultra-fine play sand. Using a crappy vacuum cleaner doesn't make it any better.

Know how to make yourself really aggravated? Take a container that has the contents of a large bottle of glitter spilled inside it and then accidentally dump it on the carpet.

There IS such a thing as saving too many empty baby food jars.

Whatever horrible, disfiguring disease I might get from breathing in mouse poo is still better than the claustrophobic feeling I get when wearing a mask over my nose and mouth.

If I had a dollar, no, even just a PENNY, for every grain of rice in that closet (most of which has been dyed every color of the rainbow), I would be writing this from a warm, beachy kind of place.

And, in case you are interested, the current tally is Mouse 3, Dyanne 1. Just remember, she who laughs last did NOT get caught in a glueboard or trap.

(Okay, yes, I DID get my gloved hand caught in a glueboard while I was working on the closet. I'd have just glossed over that if it weren't for the fact that I had several witnesses see me do it.)