Life can be crazy. Things happen that can’t be explained.

 

You try to make sense out of what you’ve experienced, but are left with the question, could it be . . .

 

  

Unbelievable But True?

 

“Oh, my God!” I screamed from my den, loud enough to rock my wife

     out of bed.

“What are you yelling about?” she asked. “You’re going to wake

     the dead.”

 

“Maybe they need to be awakened to help me resolve the problem

     I’ve discovered.”

“Problem? Couldn’t it wait until I woke up?” she sputtered.

 

“Is it so important that you have to act like a fool?”

“All right, if you listen to me, I’ll try to keep my cool.”

 

“That’ll be a first. You always overreact about small things.”

“Oh, come on! What’s small to you is important to me—like helping

     that injured little bird I found in our yard use its wings.”

 

“Well, I’m awake now, so explain your dire situation to me.”

“Okay, but you’ve got to keep an open mind and listen carefully.

 

“You know those twenty books of my poems I got printed for the family        

     the other day?”

“When you brought them home, you said they looked great

     and were done in the appropriate way.”

 

“Yes, they seemed to be perfect, but then I noticed something freaky.”

“What? You saw ghosts jumping off the page and they made you feel creepy.”

 

I ignored her response and said, “I picked up this one and everything        

     was as it should be.

However, the next one felt peculiar, like something strange was happening inside, 

     but I didn’t have the courage to look and see.”

 

“Get to the point already,” she stated, in a way that made me quake.

“Can’t you just pay attention without interrupting me?” I asked. She

     didn’t answer, but gave me the weirdest headshake.

 

Then a piercing look in her eyes made me cringe and I wanted to run

     from the house.

But before I could do so, standing before me was a six-foot mouse.

 

She’d transformed into a creature I couldn’t believe and I just stood there 

     frozen in place.

“Those are my books, for my family, and I can do anything I want with them,” 

     she exclaimed, as she stared straight in my face.

 

“The pages are all crinkled and wrinkled inside and I’ll tell you why.

If you gotta go, you gotta go, and doing it in the book was the right place

     to try.”

 

“You peed in the book, but that’s a God awful thing to do.”

“Did you want me to do it in bed and let it flow all over you?”

 

“But you’re my wife, not a mouse, and a weird one at that.”

“Well, would you rather I was something else, like maybe a twelve-foot cat?”

 

No, this can’t be happening, I thought. A huge cat stood before me in what                  

     must be my ridiculous dream.

“Life can be a mystery,” she said. “Things are not always what they seem.

 

But if you put your nose in the book, you’ll see what I’m telling you isn’t

     a lie.

So do as I say, and give it a try.”

 

“No way will I do that and you can’t force me to.”

I couldn’t believe what happened next and I had no idea what to do.

 

A shower poured from the heavens above and bathed me in stink.

The cat, now a mouse again, smiled and gave me a wink.

 

The next morning I awoke and slowly opened my eyes.

There on my wife’s pillow sat my poetry book, now titled—

     “A Cat And A Mouse In Our House: The Great Surprise.”

 

 

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