OT - Son-in_Law

[nancy]

My son-in-law is a park ranger, so my daughter and he, and Elena - the most fantastic 4-year-old ever to inhabit the planet, live in a little house in the state park. It is now being rewired - so they decided to take their vacations and go up to Massachusetts and visit a bunch of relatives. But they had to move stuff either out to storage or away from the walls - and disconnect everything electrical. Like the fridge.

 

So I took the grandgirls (4 & 10) for the afternoon just before they had to leave. And Mari asked if I could take some fresh veggies that we could use and some stuff Keith had bagged from their fridge freezer to put in either outr big freezer or the garage fridge freezer.

 

That day, I just put the stuff in the fridge and played with the girls.

 

The next day, I went out to sort and organize the stuff in the freezer. I got to a plastic grocery bag inside the regular plastic grocery bag. Took it out and found a paper bag inside it. Took that out and found a zip-lock bag inside it. Looked at that. It was a frozen rat! Well, maybe just a large mouse.

 

When I picked it up from the garage floor, I put it in its own spot in that freezer. And took out all my own stuff.

 

Then I called the kids. OK, their snake Freddie eats defrosted frozen mice. This was his spare. No, I'm not snake sitting - another ranger who has his own snake is doing that. Keith just forgot that the mouse was in the supplies.

 

Hey, their other snake, Emmy, eats live mice.

 

What points do I get for still loving a son-in-law who hides a frozen rat in stuff for me to store?

[Tassie]

Oh, Nancy, that's got to be worth big time points!

 

Reminds me of the time at a school I was teaching at when the lab tech had forgotten to thaw the rats for dissection. So how do you thaw things quickly when you need them in a hurry - in the staff-room microwave, of course! (After that, someone made up one of those sort of no-smoking signs - round with a red slash across it - and with a picture o a rat instead of a cigarette.)

[KrisK]

As far as I'm concerned...he owes you BIG time I'd find something worthy, like oh, a nice vacation to somewhere with NO frozen mice or snakes for that matter

You know, I'm not afraid of snakes, but I've never really seen the reason for snakes as pets. There's nothing really cuddly about them, is there?? Give me a dog any day!

[Dixie_Girl]

Give that woman a KLONDIKE BAR!!!

[silhouettestable]

So how do you thaw things quickly when you need them in a hurry - in the staff-room microwave, of course!

 

Of course! Makes perfect sense to me.

 

Microwaves also are great for drying last minute additions to plant collections, that you didn't have time dry for days in a plant press. Squash 'em and nuke 'em and there you go. Presto! Instant dried plant! You just have to watch out for singed edges if you overdo it.

 

Hee Hee. Ah the memories. Back in my Fish and Wildlife college days we had courses such as Wildlife Biology, Pathology & Parasitology, Forestry, Limnology, Fisheries etc. You never knew what you might find in my freezer (or that of any other poor unsuspecting soul whose freezer I had access to). We had to do a taxidermy project and I stuffed a roadkilled raccoon, and then, just for fun I picked up a mink I saw get run over and put it into the landlord's deep freezer to also taxidermy. Then there were the 3 baby raccoons that went into the in-law's deep freeze. Of course, for one of the fisheries courses we also had to do a fish collection, so then there were the jars of pickled minnows and other small fish that took up residence as well. We F&W types probably seem bizzare to the rest of the world, but once you get started on things like this you seem to collect the oddest items. A biologist I knew at the MNR had all kinds of things in his collection, including fetal fawns. Bizzare collections aren't limited to the F&W types either, my farrier has a bone collection from various horses and other animals (showing deformities, oddities etc.) Oops. Then again, before he became a farrier he also worked for Natural Resources. Hmmm....maybe it is just us...

[nancy]

Those are rescue snakes. Honest. The mother of one of the kids in Mari's pre-schol class was a vet. In each case, parents let a kid get a snake, then lost interest. Leave it to my kid to become adopt-a-snake.

[karrie]

I'd give him brownie points for attempting to keep it out of site for you.

 

As to bizarre~ nah. My dh and MIL think I'm strange cause I have my grandmother's false teeth. She never wore them. But I have to say they make a great impression on children during dental week. Brush your teeth good or you have to get teeth like these. LOL

[Kerrigan]

Well, I've had rats, mice, pinkies, fuzzies and hoppers in my freezer for several years. My oldest son has a 6.5 ft Brookes Florida Kingsnake named Liam (that Mom had to give shots to BTW)and he's a very cool snake, a 3 ft Brookes Florida Kingsnake, a Rainbow Boa (gorgeous snake), and a couple of other types of Kingsnakes. The escape artist though was my youngest son's little Western Hognose snake. I knew I was in trouble the day I walked past the fridge, saw a snake tail sticking out from underneath and didn't think anything of it! I just calmly told my son to go collect his snake. Both my parents are wildlife biologists (retired Fish & Game)and we always had a lot of weird pets, but snakes weren't one of them. While I like Liam, I like the dogs much, much more.