A Halloween Tale

On Halloween we opened our house up to our neighbors for a party. We planned to have cookies and different colored icing and other edible festivities with which to decorate them. We also grabbed some hot chocolate and snacks so that our neighbors would linger and hang out with us if they wanted to, rather than collecting candy and moving on.

I was one of the first ones home on Halloween, and I started the process of baking the cookies, with just a couple of hours before we expected guests. I cranked up the oven and pulled out the cookie mixes to have them ready for my teammates who would be coming home soon.

As they filtered in, the kitchen was abuzz with activity, with some whipping icing, some mixing up cupcakes, and others scooping out cookies onto trays. In the midst of this, the oven was slowly heating up, readying itself for our goodies. As it became sufficiently heated, we began to hear some sounds emerging from the oven—scratching sounds. I’ll be honest: we have a mouse that likes to nibble on items left out in the open. So our first thought was—there’s a mouse in our oven! As the oven continued to heat, we heard more scratching that confirmed our suspicions—something was inside our oven and trying to get out!

I alerted our team to the predicament so that we could figure out what to do with the situation. Soon it began to smell very foul—the stench of burning mouse flesh in our oven! We debated letting it out, but decided that we really wanted the mouse terminated, even if it meant having to clean out our oven later.

So we cranked up the heat. And the scratching stopped. And the smell got worse.

With no time to fully process our destructive actions, we finally turned off the oven, farmed out our baking projects to our neighbors, and lit candles to hide the smell. All the while, trick-or-treaters streamed by our house, and one commented, “Mmmm! It smells like bacon!”

Finally we corralled the courage to open the oven and examine the remains of the mouse. We found not blood or guts or singed hair, but two piles of goo, one lime green, and one royal blue! What kind of mouse leaves such remains? At closer examination, we realized that we had not torched a mouse, but melted two bowls of pumpkin seeds we had baked the night before! They had been placed in the oven to protect them from the furry friend in question. Needless to say, we were confused, disappointed, relieved, and annoyed. If only we had peeked in to see that the scratching sounds were not the paws of a mouse but the pop of pumpkin seeds and plastic! We should have listed to our neighbors when they told us a mouse would stick around once the oven was turned on…

We had little time to deal with melted plastic, which had ruined our oven for the night. We pressed on with party preparation, welcoming guests and resolving to deal with the oven later. It was a great party, with several new neighbors coming to decorate cookies! We especially had a lot of new teenagers come over, a group that isn’t usually out on the block like many of our other neighbors. We also had to kick several kids out at the end of the party because they wanted to stay later, coloring and munching on snacks.

Despite melted plastic and the kitchen confusion that followed, we had a blast on Halloween, hanging out with our neighbors of all ages!