Lauren Goes to College

by Lauren Bellon

Hi I’m Lauren and I am Julie Bellon’s oldest daughter. As most of you know, my mom is a very busy woman and was having a hard time thinking of something to blog about today. So I offered to step up and tell a story, because I am a freshman in college and have a very exciting life. I would guess that most of you readers are a bit older than me, and reading about me will add a little excitement to your life and remind you of when you were young and groovy.

This is my first year living away from home and it is super exciting. Let me just tell you a little bit about the place that I am living. It is probably about 200 years old, falling apart, flooded earlier this year, and was infested with mice. As you can tell, it is really nice. In fact, this extremely old woman in my family ward told me that she lived where I am living now. She said they had great times playing Yahtzee. Don’t worry; this story is more exciting than me playing Yahtzee.

As previously mentioned, my apartment had mice in it. My roommates were the first to spot the mouse running across the floor, and I had yet to see the creature. I have one roommate that we like to play jokes on, so I made a trail of cheese to her bedroom from the oven where the mouse had been spotted. I then went to the grocery store, and when I returned half the trail was gone and the mouse was running for cover under the oven. This sparked a long night of mouse watching.

We made a small pile of cheese in front of the oven and turned off the lights. We sat on the couch and waited to see if the mouse would come out with us all there. We waited and waited, and then he finally emerged. We watched him run back and forth, taking cheese to his home under the oven. My roommates had a hard time keeping in their screams. My other roommate came home to find us sitting on the couches in the dark. We quickly shushed her and she joined in on the fun. After watching the mouse for quite some time, one of my roommates had a good idea---we should try to catch the mouse.

My roommate headed over to the cupboard and pulled out another one of my roommate’s Tupperware bowl. She handed it to me, and I sat down on the floor with the bowl hovering over the pile of cheese. My roommates climbed onto the kitchen table and watched in silence. The mouse came and I started shaking. I slammed down the bowl but he was too quick and I missed. We decided to add peanut butter to the pile of cheese to see if that would keep him there longer. He came back for more food and I tried again, only to have another miss. Again we sat, and waited for what seemed like forever. Finally, the mouse emerged again. He sat eating peanut butter not realizing what was going to happen.

I closed my eyes and slammed the bowl down as fast as I could. I looked down. All my roommates thought I had missed, but I saw that I had definitely caught him. The only problem was that his head was on one side of the bowl and his body was on the other.

I had killed the mouse.

I started freaking out. We all ran from the room screaming, and drew some attention from people in the lobby. Some boys heard the commotion and were kind enough to dispose of the mouse for us. (In case anyone was wondering, no we did not keep the Tupperware, we threw it out.)

The next day, the exterminators came. We told them the problem had been taken care of, and I think he should have hired me on the spot but that didn’t happen.

And there you have it, a glimpse into the exciting college life. I’m sure that makes you want to send all your kids to college, because the two things I have learned are how to kill mice and how to sleep in any of my classes sitting up. (I’m just kidding. I love college and I am learning so much. It was well worth my parents’ money.) Love you mom!