The Warrior Queen With The Filter Queen

For some reason or another, I feel as though I should want to write A Very Heartfelt Post, full of Emotion and Great Wisdom to bid the old year adieu and welcome in 2007. But I'm not really one for doing what is expected of me. I don't know if you've noticed, but I tend to be a bit on the rebellious side.

And yes, I also believe that qualifies me for The Understatement of the Year Award for 2006.

Instead, I have decided to regale you with distant memories of years past.

(In case you're wondering, NOW would be the time to politely take your leave of the room, because these next few paragraphs could prove to be the type of thing which would cause you to fall asleep at the computer. I would be sadly remiss in my duties as Your Blog Host if I did not tell you of said consequences. Consider yourself warned.)

A-HEM...

Many, many years ago, back when I was a child, we moved into the house where my mother still lives. It was a fixer-upper, which was all my parents could afford at the time, and I remember it being in a constant state of remodeling. The garage became a bedroom and a laundry room. A basement was dug out from under the house. The kitchen was moved from one end of the house to where the laundry room was, and the bedroom became the dining room. The old kitchen became my sister's room. The old dining room was merged with the living room.

A patio was poured, as were walkways, a driveway, steps, and porches. New wordwork replaced all the old woodwork in the house. There was no end to wallpapering and painting and staining and tiling and varnishing and tablesaws and sawdust and boards and nails. and concrete. At least from the time I was five until I moved out of the house, and even then it continued.

Because of the constant disarray of certain parts of the house at different times, we tended to have a problem with mice. Now, normally I was left out of any mouse-type discussion, because it was well known that I have a fear of rodents that has no equal. Just looking at the little beady-eyed, long-tailed varmints makes my skin crawl and a scream of utter terror and disgust rise in my throat. I can't even look at a dead one without getting the heebie-jeebies. As with other hereditary traits I carry, I came by this naturally.

Mom can't stand mice. They scare her to death. However, that never keeps her from defending her children and humble abode against them whenever they attack. And defend it she does. Like a veritable Warrior Queen.

To give you just a bit of background, Mom is all of five feet one. Soaking wet she might possibly weigh one hundred ten pounds, IF she had just consumed half a ham and a ten pound bag of potatoes for lunch. All this to say she does not resemble the run-of-the-mill Warrior Queen, unless said Warrior Queen was of the Munchkin variety. However, even as small as she is, she is still one hundred times larger than any rodent who might dare invade her home. It's just hard for her to remember that.

One night after the kitchen had just been moved from one end of the house to the other, Mom saw a dark streak go across the kitchen floor. Now, being the clean freak that she is and always has been, Mom just happened to have the brand-new Filter Queen vacuum cleaner in her hand at the time, vacuuming the linoleum. (Don't even ask...I can't begin to explain it.)

Armed to the teeth with the wand of her vacuum cleaner, she ran over to where the mouse was and started to try to suck him up, all the while screaming at the top of her lungs and stamping her feet on the floor at the same time. She scared us so much we climbed up on the dining room chairs to escape the possibilty of being eaten by the intruder, and started screaming and stamping our feet as well. It's a wonder the poor mouse didn't die of heart failure right then and there. Instead, he decided to beat feet out of there, and ran under the dishwasher.

Not to be outdone, Our Heroine pried the front panel off of the dishwasher and stuck the wand of the still-running vacuum cleaner underneath it. She kept screaming and stamping and vacuuming and screaming and stamping and vacuuming until she heard the vacuum hit paydirt.

The mouse had been sucked up by the Filter Queen.

To ensure our safety, the Warrior Queen did what any good Hunter of Rodents would do...she stuffed a wadded-up paper towel in the end of the vacuum cleaner wand after she turned it off to keep the mouse inside in case he decided to crawl out.

Because, as we all know, mice cannot possibly chew through paper towels. That is, if they survive having their lungs sucked out by the all-powerful Filter Queen in the first place.

After Dad got home he emptied the vacuum cleaner bag and replaced it, because even though it may be dead, one does not want to deal with a mouse unless one must. The screaming and stamping eventually stopped, and all went back to whatever degree of normal it was that our household enjoyed.

This is a story which will forever remain in our family history, to be passed down from generation to generation. It is our heritage.

And Mom will never live it down.

So here's a little comedy for you to enjoy as we end this year. May the blessings of the Lord fall on you like rain all of 2007 long, and may you remember to take time out to enjoy the laughter and joy that God provides us, free of charge, just by living the life He's given us.

Psalm 126:2
We celebrated with laughter and joyful songs. In foreign nations it was said, "The LORD has worked miracles for his people."

Happy New Year from all of us in the

Singer household!