THERE'S A MOUSE IN MY UNDERLINING

Dateline:

Siem Reap Town - Tue July 5 2011, 8:56 a.m.

Pat E Lyon

Mony and I arrived early for sewing class. It was to have been from 11:00 am to 12:00 noon. But really, it is from 10:15 am to 1:00 pm and the women are still sewing when we leave. I began by writing on the whiteboard. We were going to have a meeting at 12:45 to discuss design. I noticed Mr. Sok's cat was very interested in a plastic bag of purse tab underlinings that I had left next to the wall the night before. Mrs. Sok said, "SHHHHH" and tried to scoot the cat away. I naively assumed there must be a cricket in the bag, or that it was a really playful cat. Mony also tried. "SHHHH!" It must be Khmer to "scat". Suddenly the cat found what it wanted. It left the bag with a fat "mou." ("mouse" with Khmer pronounciation) The cat proceeded to chase the mouse all around the house. Mony chaased it into a corner behind the sewing machines. Just then another student came in. She exclaimed about the mouse and cat. I shrieked and cliimbed onto a sewing chair. I was barefoot and wearing baggy crop pants.

The woman strided up to the mouse and cat and took the mouse in her bare hands and carried it outside. She handed it over to a small boy and walked back into the house and began to sew (without washing her hands).

I wondered to myself..."Is this rodent week or what?"

And all the way back in the buried recesses of my mind I thought quietly to myself "EEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWW!"

I do not know the fate of the "mou". The cat seemed rather disappointed.