What's In The Bottle?


                               By Phil Scovell




          The  pastor stopped and came  in.  "Let me  get a bottle of water
     out of the garage for my wife," I said, "and I'll be ready to go."  He
     said ok and I walked to the  door going into our attached garage.   We
     had a water distiller and I had moved it into our garage, since we had
     no basement in our new home, and this way, we could keep the heat that
     the machine generated  out of the house.   Closing the door  behind me
     and  carrying the quart  bottle into the kitchen,  I walked toward the
     sink where I planned on setting the bottle down.

          "Hey," the  pastor said as  I neared the  sink, "let me  see that
     bottle.  I  turned and held it up.   I figured he was  just looking at
     the label that was still on the bottle that I was now using to keep my
     distilled water in.  He took it from me and said, "Just a second," and
     he  walked to the garage  door.  Coming back,  he handed me the bottle
     and said, "Ok, let's go."

          Driving down  the hill away  from my  house, the pastor  placed a
     bottle that looked just like the ones  we were using for our distilled
     water in my lap.

          "What's this?" I asked; puzzled.

          "It is the bottle you brought out of the garage and  was about to
     sit on the counter for your wife to use next  to the sink for drinking
     water."

          "So," I said as I touched the coolness of the glass and made sure
     the  lid  was  screwed  on  tightly so  none  of  its  contents  might
     accidentally spill on my clothes.

          "So," he replied  quietly, inside that bottle is  a floating dead
     mouse."

          To this day,  my wife and  I, both blind,  then and now,  have no
     idea  how much water  we had been  sharing with field  mice before the
     pastor discovered they were drinking my distilled water with us.

          I was mystified how the mouse got in the bottle.  The opening was
     a good inch and a half wide.  The pastor suggested, since the level of
     the  water was a couple  of inches below the  top of the bottle's lip,
     they were leaning down inside to reach  the water and one fell in  and
     drown.  Then I dutifully came out,  unawares of course, and screwed on
     the lid to start another bottle  of water distilling.  Yes, I  brought
     the distiller into the house and kept it in the laundry room from then
     on.  To this day, however, I am still a little paranoid about drinking
     from  a bottle  of any  kind.   No.   I  absolutely have  no grief  or
     compassion  for the  mouse so  you are  welcome to  turn me in  to the
     animal rights people.

                             End Of Article