Hauntingly Funny

Remember the rat skeletons? They weren't the only skeletons hanging around our house...

I went to check the mail earlier this week and was distracted by something white I saw in a bush:

I convinced myself it was a bird skeleton. I saw it in the day--saw the little ribs poking up and thought I saw a jaw. Of course I grabbed the mail and went back inside immediately. A few days later I remembered to tell Andrew about it while we were having dinner with our friend Sarah. We like to call her Aunt Sarah because she often takes care of Sherpa when we're gone. As does our friend Kurt---Uncle Kurt. But I digress...

Already creeped out by the rats we found, I'm pretty sure coming over to our house was dropping on Sarah's list of places to visit. I commented that it could have been string, but I couldn't be sure and didn't want to touch it. We dropped the subject, finished dinner and moved on.

Later that night, Sarah was bringing me home from house church. I remembered the skeleton and drug everyone outside to see it.

I think Andrew was even a little spooked because he didn't get too close. We took some pictures and that was going to be that, but I insisted we move it. My theory? A bird (or squirrel, or chipmunk--basically any small animal) got in our bush, five feet of snow came and he suffocated. Andrew put on a glove and grabbed some wire cutters to remove it.

The closer we got the more interesting things became. It started to look less like a bird and more like a human. Remember...we're a little creeped out-- we did just find two perfectly intact rat skeletons in our wall. Crazy thoughts ran through my head, but Sarah and Andrew, the practical, mathematical kids they are put a stop to that. Sarah mentioned Halloween, but I immediately disregarded that because we didn't decorate for Halloween. Nor did I ever see this white boney thing in our bush before. And I do check the mail pretty regularly.

But like it does 99.9% of the time in my life, logic won out over my paranoid brain. You may have even seen it from the start. Here are some pictures to document our discovery:

What I thought was a jaw is now starting to look like a human skull.

Definitely a human skull...still creepy though.

Yep. It was a little rubber guy wrapped around the bush.

We all had a pretty good laugh after that. I am still suspicious though. I've never, ever seen it before, and we've lived here a year. It was pretty dirty, which means it should have been there for awhile. Even if it was there when we moved in, the thought of the previous owner--an elderly woman with Alzheimer's--having decorated with tiny rubber skeletons is a little over the top. My new theory? There are quite a few pranksters we hang around...only time will tell.