Phil, the Flying Mouse

"You should write a book!"

That's what my mom said to me when I called her the other night to tell her about my adventures in Philadelphia. A couple coworkers/classmates and I drove down to Philadelphia to attend a review session for the NAPLEX which was being provided by our employer. Since all expenses were paid, they were putting us up in the Hilton and all we had to do was get there we signed up pretty much the day we got the invite.

As we all piled in the car to head to Philly, I asked if anyone had been there before. Nope, no one had. Oh, now THIS could be an adventure. To get to Philly you have to drive through New York City. I hadn't been to either and I had no desire at all to drive through NYC! But since it was my car it looked like I didn't have a choice.

Obviously since I'm writing this four days after the fact, we made it to Philly (in fact, I'm now home again). And the drive wasn't event he adventure I'd called to tell my mother about.

We got to Philly pretty late Thursday night and we were exhausted. And hungry. So we ate at the restaurant in the hotel and figured we'd find somewhere more reasonable to eat the next day. So Friday evening we ask the shuttle driver to take us to Ruby Tuesdays.

As we chat with him on the ride someone mentions they'd rather not eat at a franchise. His eyes light up and he goes, "Well, I have the place for you! Do you like steak and seafood?" We all said sure and we'd be willing to try some other place. So off we went to a local restaurant & bar. Our first shock of the evening was "Smoking or non?" Well now, that's a blast from the past, something none of us had heard for quite awhile.

We were seated in a room that had probably a dozen or so tables for four in it. There were three other tables occupied. The waitress and hostess were friendly. We ordered drinks and sat down to take a look at the menu. Hmmm, everything looked good. Eventually we settled on something and chatted about life in general and future plans while we waited for our meal to be served. Another round of drinks were delivered and dinner was going scrumptiously.

Then all of the sudden something goes flying between me and the lady sitting next to me and drops down on our table by our plates. My first thought was the scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Robert flings the snail across the restaurant. Oh, but no! It wasn't that at all. The woman beside me and I realized pretty much at the same time just WHAT had landed on our dinner table. She gasped and shot away from the table. I stood up and stared at it in disbelief. The other two ladies at the table were still trying to figure out what it was when I went "It's a MOUSE!" and at the moment the mouse rolled over and started scurrying around our dinner table.

No one screamed which in and of itself is amazing. The four older ladies at the next table didn't even drop a fork while they watched their dinner entertainment from less than three feet away and continued right on eating. The gentleman at the next table came over with a cup and tried to trap the mouse at which point the mouse decided jumping would be better and flew off the table to the floor.

At this point one of the ladies I'm with climbs on a chair and I pick up two of our purses on the floor so we don't take this furry, uninvited dinner guest home with us. The waitress has run off to find the owner and the gentleman with the glass somehow manages to trap the furry critter under it. The owner, embarrassed, sweeps out of the kitchen, scoops up mouse and glass and disappears into the kitchen in less than 15 seconds.

Sweating, shaking and a bit in shock, we're seated at another table and asked if we'd like another drink. OH YEAH! Make it something hard! We're no longer hungry and we're more than ready to leave but the shuttle won't be back for 45 minutes. After a half hour of looking over our heads, we decided we'd much rather be outside than wondering where our furry dinner guest's friends were.


We were commended by one of the older ladies for not screaming and when they came out of the restaurant they even thanked us for the free meal. Oh, yep, no problem, you're welcome! As we stood outside we laughed about the whole thing saying, well now we have a story about Philly. This is when we decided we should name the mouse and nothing fit better than Phil since we were in Philadelphia.

Soon our shuttle driver pulled up and we loaded up on board. He asked us how the meal was and we said, well, the food was good, the entertainment and dinner guests, not so much. And he stopped and looked at us in the mirror. We told him how this mouse had fallen from the sky (we're pretty sure he fell from the ceiling fan) and landed right smack in the middle of our table. He didn't believe us so we told him to go in and ask them! And he did. He comes out shaking his head, muttering "Never in 17 years!" We laughed all the way back to the hotel.

The next night we went to Ruby Tuesdays and had a rodent free, slightly less dramatic evening but the food wasn't as good!