I Should Have Expected . . .

. . . the day to be a little "odd" when I realized on my way to work this morning that the clowns had come to town.

But I didn't. Not then. I just wondered where the elephants rode.

During my lunch hour, I decided to make a visit to the Goodwill store. You know the one I shoplifted from last time I went? Yeah, that one. And sometimes you run into odd people at thrift stores. Oh, I'm not talking about ME or any of YOU, of course. WE'RE all quite normal. But still . . .

I wonder who would drive this car? I'm pretty sure this lovely purple doesn't come standard on a Lincoln Town Car. The fact that it's not lowered and all tricked out tells me it's someone with a restrained sense of style. In other words, it's probably not your average pimp. I wondered whether I might be able to spot the owner inside.

Could it have been the two Hispanic men in the electronics aisle, speaking in Spanish on their cell phones, cranking up the stereo systems to ensure good speaker quality?

Could it have been the mother with the heavy Southern accent and her daughter who appeared to be in her late teens? They were an interesting pair. Both were overweight, lumpily flabby, and dressed in sloppy clothing. During the time it took me to pass them by, I heard the mother admonish her daughter at least FOUR TIMES that she should NEVER dress in scanty clothing like some of the clothes on the racks because men won't respect her and will treat her like "sh!t." Guess what mom? I don't think that's going to be the biggest problem! No, I'm pretty sure they weren't driving the flashy purple car.

In the textiles/linens aisles, I felt something poke my rear end. Ouch! I adjusted my pants but the pain continued. When I oh-so-subtly hid myself between the racks and stuck my hand down inside the back of my pants, I felt something that seemed to be a sticker or a splinter. The pain stopped for a few moments but then I felt a different pain--kind of an itchy/stingy sensation. As best I can figure, I got stung by a bee in the Goodwill store. The one I shoplifted from last time. Karma?

You can bet I finished my shopping as quickly as I could, trying not to be obvious about scratching my rear end, and checked out. And yes, at the checkstand I made a $3 donation to help train the handicapped, so I've made restitution for my previous shoplifting. I don't think I want any more of that karma following me around and stinging me in the butt!

Well, you'd think that was enough excitement for one day, but no! Late in the day, as I was going out the front door of my office building, I saw a rat.

By way of background, our office is located in a very pretty area with lots of vegetation. Because of that, there are rats all over, although we don't usually SEE them. Our pest control guy puts out poison, and on a fairly regular basis, the rats eat the poison and climb up into the building's "attic" space and die. The pest control guy comes back out when someone's nose alarm detects the need, and he and removes the little rat bodies. Unfortunately there's something about the building's design that causes most of the rats to die in the space above the reception area. Understandably, our receptionist doesn't like rats much.

So, anyway, I opened the front door, saw a rat outside, and turned back to our receptionist to jokingly tell her there was a rat out there, waiting to die. As I turned back to the door, I saw the rat charging at me full speed. Before I could close the door, it zoomed right in, acting like I was nothing more than the WalMart greeter, scurried past me, and made a beeline for the receptionist's desk.

The receptionist didn't believe me about the rat until she saw it run around the corner of her desk. I felt kind of sorry for the person whose phone call she had just answered, because she screamed into the phone THREE TIMES before she announced the name of our law firm. Once she transferred the call, she ran out of the reception area as fast as she could and sat on top of the nearest desk, while I went to get my fearless Boy Boss and a box to catch the rat in.

Because our receptionist had disappeared and the phone was ringing, I started answering calls while the rat was running all over near my feet and Boy Boss was trying to maneuver the box into position for capture. The first call I answered was the senior partner wanting to know what was on his calendar for Monday. I think I did a pretty good job at not letting on that there was anything unusual going on, despite the fact that a rat was running all over the place, Boy Boss was under the desk where he'd been joined by one of the tender-hearted staff members, and by that time, the office manager had appeared to direct the two of them--from the OTHER side of the desk where I kind of doubt she even had a view of the proceedings--on how to catch the rat.

As you may imagine, by that time, it was getting kind of loud up there as several more people had come out to see what was going on. It seemed the only one who hadn't appeared was our receptionist, so I continued to field calls. One of the other partners called looking for his secretary who was nowhere to be found. Then the secretary called from somewhere in the office. Then the receptionist called from somewhere else in the office to say she had found the secretary. Just as the phones quieted down a little, the rat was caught in the box, and we all trooped outside to release it back into the wilds.

And it's a darn good thing someone had the presence of mind to close the door this time because as soon as the rat was released, it ran right back to the door--but this time, it kind of slammed into the glass, bounced off, and ran away in a different direction. Hopefully it wasn't trying to make its way up into the attic. I'd prefer to believe it ran off to join the circus and scare the elephants.