It was early in the morning and somehow I've been blessed to not be a very flagellant man in regards to smell. If I become aware of any smell whatsoever, I know "it's time", and I go for my daily constitutional.

In this temporary office, I'm at a desk among many. We have dividers, but ambient air is shared. I fluffed and to my total embarrassment and miscalculation, "it was time". Well, you always hope that it is only you that smells the indiscretion, but suddenly the supervisor of the area, 2 desks to my left, stands and says, "Folks, I believe we have a mouse among us that has died. Everyone get down on the floor and check under and around your desk so we can find this putrid thing."

So, here I am on my hands and knees with about 14 others looking for the dead mouse that I knew didn't exist. We searched for about 5 minutes and yet, not unsurprising to me, it was never found. The moment I was freed from the search, I high-tailed it to the bathroom.

Nothing more was said out loud on the subject by the supervisor and thankfully I moved on back to my office the next day as the assignment was over.

In our family, when someone commits a SBD or obvious event, we say, "I believe there's a dead mouse around here somewhere."