A Mouse, A Mixmaster, A Mess

It began with a wayward mouse and a bowl of pancake batter.

In a moment of domesticity, my mother - possibly as a result of going to bed sober and waking clear eyed and clear headed - decided to make pancakes for breakfast. My grandmother, in her defense, a little under the weather from a summer cold, reluctantly agreed but still felt the need to remind her how to crack the eggs and measure the milk properly.

My mother sighed heavily but it was just routine sparring and I didn't think much about it. I didn't know that not too far in the future I'd come to understand exactly how she felt. At times I wonder if it might've made me a little more charitable.

Indulge me, Mother, she said in a voice that fairly dripped with sarcasm, It's pancakes. I hardly think I need an instruction manual to make pancakes.

Use the mixmaster else there'll be lumps in the batter, my grandmother replied as if she hadn't heard, and don't forget to grease the skillet or it'll stick.

It's a reflex, my Cousin Elaine observed when it was all over, I'm forty-two and she still doesn't approve of how I make a bed.

Nana was in the pantry slicing bacon and I was curled up beside the stove with the dogs when the  mixmaster - a double barreled and oft times temperamental old monster - roared to life. Both dogs tensed with alarm and I remember thinking it was as loud as an outboard motor and only a little less bulky.

Jan, Cousin Elaine, who had poured herself a cup of coffee and gone outside to admire the day, called, Do you need kindling for the stove?

My mother didn't answer and for one or two pre-mayhem seconds, I thought she hadn't heard.

That was when the mouse appeared in the doorway to the living room and suddenly darted across the linoleum floor. The dogs panicked and went scrabbling after the poor creature and my mother, screaming bloody murder and flailing desperately to avoid him, jarred the whirring mixmaster with an elbow or maybe a knee as she tried her best to climb into the sink. Pancake batter was flying like fall out - gobs of it striking the walls, the ceiling, the stove, the windows -

and my unfortunate grandmother as she emerged from the pantry. She skidded on a patch of it, lost her footing and went down like the proverbial ton of bricks, all the while cursing a blue streak.

Turn it off! she was shouting, Jeanette! Turn it off! Unplug the cussed thing!

It was Cousin Elaine who saved the day. My terrorized mother was still shrieking and Nana was still cursing when she came through the screen door, arms raised to shield herself from the still flying batter. She ducked and took a tumble but managed to haul herself up to the counter and wrench the plug from the socket. The mixmaster fell blessedly silent. There was no sign of the mouse or the dogs. I looked from my grandmother, still on the floor and furiously snatching at the pancake batter in her hair and on her glasses, to my mother, cowering half in and half out of the kitchen sink and spattered from head to toe, and finally to Cousin Elaine, calmly sitting on the floor and brushing batter from her blue jeans and denim shirt.

Well, ladies, she announced, Guess we'll have to re-think breakfast. Then she winked at me and fell out laughing.

By then the entire house was stirring and I could hear the dull but frantic thumps of footsteps on the staircase. Nana's sister and her husband, two other cousins, my daddy, and last but not least, both of the dogs all poured into the kitchen, looking concerned, relieved, amused and mystfied. I think we all knew better than to laugh but it was a sight and while Cousin Elaine had gotten hold of herself for the moment, one look at my grandmother set her off again and it was contaigious. It seemed nobody except Nana and my mother could not laugh.

For Christ's sake, Guy, my grandmother snapped, Quit yer gawking and help me up! Jeanette, will you stop that godawful caterwauling! And somebody put those damn dogs out!

My daddy got her to her feet and after she checked for and found no broken bones, she slapped his hands away, reached for a new apron, and glared at us.

Jeanette, she said in a voice that would've frozen hell, Git down. Fetch a mop and a bucket of water. And for the love of God, will you shut up! The rest of you clear outta my kitchen and be quick about it. You want breakfast, it ain't gon' be served here but the canteen's open. You kin jist carry your sorry selves down to it.

The wrath of God was in her eyes and we obediently filed out. The last I saw of my mother that morning, she was climbing awlwardly out of the sink and off the counter, smears of pancake batter clinging to her hair and chubby cheeks and hanging on her housedress like caterpillars. The last I heard from my grandmother - right after she banned my mother from the kitchen for a week - was that there was nothing funny about pancake jokes, she considered the matter closed and expected no future mention of it, and heaven help us all if there was as much as a whisper of it from or to anyone on the outside. No one doubted for a moment that she meant what she said but when Cousin Elaine ordered pancakes at the canteen and then suggested we take some home for Nana, we laughed until we cried.

Turns out pancake jokes can be funny after all.