Mouse Lesbians

A story by my sister Sally from a few months back, when she visited Lourdes:

At this time of year Lourdes is a ghost town. More than half the town is closed and the religious fervour is considerably lessened. The hotel I thought I had booked over the web turned out to be closed so we got the taxi driver to drop us off at Hotel de la Gare instead. The train station hotel. TL, being vegan, can not always find places she can eat that are 'kosher' so carries a lot of food wherever she goes. She was awoken by a leaping (actually jumping!) mouse in our room, chowing down on her organic pumpernickel and anything else he could find. Despite her screams I of course slept through this as because of her weird 'white-noise' sleep machine (set to 'running stream') I have been wearing earplugs. I did however examine the evidence with concern the next morning and we agreed to find a new hotel. I also agreed that TL, with a better grasp of French, could try to argue a cheaper or free price for the night.

So it was for the first time we assumed our bad-cop, good-cop roles. I'm the good-cop which means I stand in the background feebly pretending I don't understand French while TL does a maginificent line in "le souris, le souris! Combien pour le souris qui mange sour ma tete!" We still had to pay. They threatened to call the police. TL left her mouse nibblied bread and stuff on the counter and told them to serve it up in no uncertain terms.

Cue the Hotel Flandria, closer to the grotto, cheaper, warmer, bigger room but a piddly shower that you have to hold in your hand. TL suffered for my sake! What a through-and-through Catholic! She is officially WARTIME. Other hotels offers of extremely close twin beds led us to beleive that the entire town believed us to be lesbians. The strange looks we received in some places also led us to believe that the mouse story had quickly spread and that we were being referred to in the Lourdes hospitality industry as THE MOUSE LESBIANS.