holy crap.
are you even kidding me??
living in new york, i've come to accept that life may be grittier than it had been in my previous life in california. part of that grit is the occasional mouse in the house. we refer to each one as "murray". sometimes we go months with no sign of murray. other times, a little murray will scurry along the wall at night. silent and, i confess, a little cute. if i could magically transport all the murrays from this building to a mousey sanctuary where they could frolick freely in their mousey-ness, i would. instead, traps have been set, and a murray was killed last week. i haven't seen murray since.
last night, i learned that i do not have the same feelings toward all rodents. sadly, a rat has made its presence known. a tenacious, hungry, and i'm sure ugly rat. during the six years that i've lived in this apartment, this is the first possibility of mano-a-mano with a rat. this creature is stronger and has better climbing abilities than murray. i've not seen him (ej has), but as i was laying in bed pre-dawn today, i could hear that damned dirty rat getting into something in the kitchen. i got so angry that i had visions of me sitting in the dark, baseball bat in hand, waiting to brain that nasty creature with one sure stroke. instead, i got out of bed and added an irresistibly creamy dab of peanut butter to the already loaded rat trap. i disposed of the bag of tainted danish wafers that sat on the kitchen floor. i found a wafer, alone and partially chewed in front of the fridge. i sanitized the kitchen table and baker's rack. the sun still wasn't up, so i waited. and hoped. nothing yet.
to my friends and family who will be visiting for thanksgiving (if indeed, they haven't had a sudden change of plans), i expect to have very good news regarding the rodent situation in the next 24 hours. it has helped that my mom is completely freaked out about this invasion because it makes me calmer. and focused. and ready to wage war.
rattus rigor mortis will be his name!
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6 comments:
Sandra,
You're a crack up. I love reading your blog because it's a reminder that I'm not going through this experience alone. There are many of us out there who are finding the courage and strength to kick ass. I'm glad our blogs passed. I was told of you through Peter, a mutual friend of your sister's.
Good luck with the rat.
i hear the Tom&Jerry theme music in the background. I wonder what you and EJ look like animated?
Maybe your rat knows the mouse in my basement...who eats more peanut butter than my four children combined and I swear leaves its little mice poop all over the place as a "stick it up yours!" kind of statement. At least my mouse is cuter than your rat, I think...good luck with the kill!! :)
Our station is in the middle of an airfield, and keeping the rodent population down is a pretty consistent chore. We learned that if you set the traps up a little, like on top of a block of wood, they have to climb up to get the bait so they can't just steal it. Pretty effective.
Grandma Van's trick was a mixture of 50% plaster of paris and 50% flour. They'd eat it and mummify, so dried out there's no stech of rat in the wall. They furry rocks you come across later are a bit macabre, I'll admit
Ummm....did I say I was going to 'New York' for Thanksgiving?? Uh...heheh, what I meant to say is I'll be feeding 'the storks' at Irvine Lake with the kiddos this year!! Say hi to Mr. Mortis for us...maybe we'll catch up with him next year!
You need a dog. Not just for all the free fuzzy dog love you will then receive but the DDR (damn dirty rat) free home you would then have. Not a cat. My cats have just brought me the DDR's - alive- while I was in bed. And then tried to kill them. In my bed. With me still in it. No amount of therapy can touch that. Waking up to the sounds of screaming rat......
I'm still coming to visit. You and your dirty rats cannot scare me away.
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