The Chronicles of Phillip Johnson, Part 3

To read part 1, go here.  To read part 2, go here.

~Things Get Ugly~

(note: if you are especially squeamish, skip part 3 and tell yourself we all lived happily ever after, together)

I arrive home from my lovely evening with Ben. The SpongeBob Movie was cute and funny, but Ben was cuter and funnier. He insisted on wearing a big flowered sun hat and bringing his stuffed monkey (named Coconut) to the movies and to dinner, I am so relaxed and carefree, I almost forget about Phillip Johnson.

As I enter the house and hang my winter coat in the front hall closet, I see Frank sitting in the living room, his image partly obscured by shadows. He calls to me to come in and sit down. I am afraid of what he will tell me. He begins by saying, "The story I'm about to tell you has some good parts, some bad parts, and some very disgusting parts." And so, Dear Reader, consider yourself warned. Here is his story.

Nat, recreating her reaction to seeing P.J.

I laid down on the couch, thinking I might take a quick nap. From my vantage point on the couch, I could see the gap under the basement door and my final thought as I drifted off to sleep was, "I wonder if Phillip Johnson will try to come upstairs..."

I was awoken by the most blood-curdling scream I've ever heard. Natalie ran into the living room screaming and yelling "I saw him, he's in the laundry room!".  I started yelling at her to stop screaming. She kept screaming. She and Sam ran upstairs.


Phil put that piece of dog
 food on that glove

I ran to the laundry room. I saw Phillip Johnson take a piece of dog food from Violet's bowl and drop it onto a glove in the closet. I told Joe to go get Violet, she wouldn't come so Joe carried her in. She sat in the laundry room while Phillip Johnson ran behind her. She did not react.

I told Joe to put Violet in her cage and I went to get a mousetrap from the basement. I set up the mousetrap with a piece of dog food in the trap with the peanut butter. Joe and I got out of the way to watch the trap. I saw Phillip Johnson sniff the food in the trap but he didn't take it. He took another piece of dog food back to the closet.

He came into the kitchen and hid under the stove. At this point I went into the laundry room and got the broom. I saw Phillip Johnson run along the cabinets to the back door, then under the dishwasher. I told Joe to open the dishwasher to see if  Phillip Johnson was in there while I stood at the ready with the broom. Joe didn't see anything inside the dishwasher so I told him to close the dishwasher and run it, hoping the noise would scare him out.

About 30 seconds later Phillip Johnson ran out from under the dishwasher, scurried under the table, and squeezed under the door to the basement. He popped back out and traveled to the doorway between the kitchen and the playroom.

An artist (Natalie's) rendering of the broom

I had a clear shot, I had to take it.  With an overhead swing, I slammed the broom onto the vole, killing it and breaking the broom.

Joe went upstairs to tell the other kids it was dead. At this point I realized it didn't have a head. I started searching for the head, but didn't see it anywhere. When the kids came down. Joe found the head in the living room. The kids were amazed.  Then I used the bottom half of the broom and the dustpan to clean up the remains of Phillip Johnson. 

Frank's story left me feeling revolted and relieved. I took some pictures of the scene. We were curious as to how far Phillip's head had flown from his body and we measured it at 20 feet. I was not kidding when I said Frank does not like rodents.

The kids measuring the distance between head
and body of Mr. Phillip Johnson

We learned many things from this experience. We learned that Violet is completely useless in emergency situations. We learned after examining Frank's crime scene photos of Phillip Johnson that he was actually a mole, not a vole as we originally determined. We learned that Tupperware consultants are unflappable. We learned that moles like dog food. We learned that our kids are fascinated by disgusting things. But most of all, and I just cannot stress this enough, we learned that Frank really, really, really hates rodents.

Goodbye Phillip Johnson, I'm sorry it had to end so violently, but I'm not sorry that it has ended.

The End.