The Infamous Rat Story...
For those that have never heard about it, or maybe are just reading my site for the first time, I'll preface this story by saying that this was written a couple of years ago, when I was taking night classes in San Francisco and working during the day full time. On the night in question, I had had a particulary rough day, and wanted nothing more than a bite to eat and to go to bed. As you'll see in the email I was sending to Swampie, it didn't work out quite that way...
So I drive home at 12:30...I step in the house and put some leftover pizza in the microwave... lunch was 12 hours earlier.:P Celeste comes out of her room and informs me that she discovered a RAT in her closet earlier this evening... and it was really bothering her. (not that I blame her, but it was quite amusing) Apparently the stupid thing chewed a hole in the panel giving access to the attic and dropped down onto the shelf and couldn't get down or back up.
So while I'm checking out the access panel and determining that yes, that's where the rat came in, it appears on the upper shelf, causing Celeste to scream.
Armed with a broom and standing on a chair, I am seeking to shoo the rat out of the closet and hopefully out the front door. The rat does some amazing acrobatics, and does a bannister slide down the arm of one of Celeste's jackets, and is now buried in the mess of shoes and crap in the bottom of Celeste's closet.
One must now give pause to ask a very pertinent question.... just where oh where are the trusty children at this point? My ferocious tiger, leopard, and fierce wolf? Answer: The fierce wolf and Celeste are doing that protection shuffle... everytime Celeste would put the dog between her and the closet, Echo would get behind her legs and peer out. This lasted until i suggested that Celeste stand at the ready with the broom to push the rat into the hall as I attempted to scare the rat out of the closet...that was when Celeste decided she couldn't possibly stand on the floor.. and was perched on the futon where the dog couldn't get behind her. Prince came into the room just in time to see the rat make another frantic acrobatic manuever (still in the closet)... Prince's feet didn't touch the floor for at least 4 full steps as he made a retreat into the safety of the hallway. Zipper meanwhile got one whiff of the commotion and found someplace (no doubt HIGH off the ground) to observe. She appeared about an hour after the whole thing was over.
So if you haven't gotten a mental image yet... I'm wedged in the back corner of the closet testing each shoe for rats before tossing it in to the middle of the room. Celeste is standing on the futon tenaciously hanging on to the broom... god help the rat if she actually got a chance to swing at it... god help ME if I were within broom-range. I spook the rat who runs straight at me and then across my leg, to the little space between the sliding doors on the closet. The shoe box, that I was hoping to catch the thing in didn't move quite fast enough.:P So as I'm shining a flashlight between the doors, watching this rat run up and down the HEIGHT of the doors... (vertically), Echo, the fearless, fierce hunter that she is, suddenly realizes that there is something going on.... not only is something going on, but it's going on RIGHT WHERE I AM... so now I have a VERY excited Jack Russell Terrier doing handsprings over my head and circling the door. The rat is unfazed... it's just sitting between the doors waiting for something interesting to happen.
Now, I'm still wedged into the back corner of the closet with a flashlight trained on this stupid rat who has now caused me over 20 minutes of grief. Celeste retrieved the blow dart gun from her shelf... which is only equipped with STUN darts, unfortunately.. but I'm doing my best to hold a flashlight in the crack of the doors and aim this blowgun, I guess in hopes of STUNning the rat, while the dog is basically in hysterics. Prince, by the way, is now curled up on the other end of the futon, watching us with that little smirk on his face... you know the one I mean... the one that makes me feel like my name should be Jon Arbuckle, and I'm dumber than Odie.
So I'm smacking this rat with stun darts, which is not only NOT stunning the rat, but could perhaps actually be just slightly annoying him. I could tell it was a him by this point... we have become quite acquainted, as he's facing away from me. In a last minute desperate act, I swipe the dangerous weapon from Celeste's hands (the broom) and manage to spread the space between the doors enough to insert the handle and poke the rat... This of course sends the rat and the dog, who is now barking, into equal amounts of frenzy. The rat leaps out of the space between the doors from about 3' up, directly towards Celeste who screeches, and the dog hurdles me and makes her way over to where the rat landed. The next minute or so is kinda blurry, as I'm now laughing so hard I can't see straight... what I do recall is the dog chasing the rat under the futon under a cat who has suddenly found himself between a excessively excited dog, and a terrified rat... needless to say, Prince made the right decision and moved very quickly out of the way. There was a rather umm.. meaty... crunching sound.. and the dog had a new item to play catch with... except now... as she goes running down the hall way, Celeste and I are chasing her and telling her to drop it, in hopes that it isn't being eaten in front of us, or worse yet, bleeding all over the floor. I managed to persuade Echo to take it outside where I got her to drop the now dead rat. I got a bag and put the corpse in it... and wheeled the trash out to the dumpster.. the dog however is now even more hysterical, because she knows that there was something there.. and now she can't find it... she's retracing her steps from the door to the spot where she dropped it... over and over and over...
I get out to the dumpster with the shopping cart that we use as the trash wagon... just as I throw the bag containing the dead rat into the dumpster a small brown kitten flies out from underneath the dumpster, almost sending me into cardiac arrest.
I'm now in my room typing this and trying to enjoy the twice reheated pizza while Echo is still trying to track the rat from the closet all the way to the door and back .. again and again....thinking, umm... tastes like chicken!
And how was YOUR evening?
So I drive home at 12:30...I step in the house and put some leftover pizza in the microwave... lunch was 12 hours earlier.:P Celeste comes out of her room and informs me that she discovered a RAT in her closet earlier this evening... and it was really bothering her. (not that I blame her, but it was quite amusing) Apparently the stupid thing chewed a hole in the panel giving access to the attic and dropped down onto the shelf and couldn't get down or back up.
So while I'm checking out the access panel and determining that yes, that's where the rat came in, it appears on the upper shelf, causing Celeste to scream.
Armed with a broom and standing on a chair, I am seeking to shoo the rat out of the closet and hopefully out the front door. The rat does some amazing acrobatics, and does a bannister slide down the arm of one of Celeste's jackets, and is now buried in the mess of shoes and crap in the bottom of Celeste's closet.
One must now give pause to ask a very pertinent question.... just where oh where are the trusty children at this point? My ferocious tiger, leopard, and fierce wolf? Answer: The fierce wolf and Celeste are doing that protection shuffle... everytime Celeste would put the dog between her and the closet, Echo would get behind her legs and peer out. This lasted until i suggested that Celeste stand at the ready with the broom to push the rat into the hall as I attempted to scare the rat out of the closet...that was when Celeste decided she couldn't possibly stand on the floor.. and was perched on the futon where the dog couldn't get behind her. Prince came into the room just in time to see the rat make another frantic acrobatic manuever (still in the closet)... Prince's feet didn't touch the floor for at least 4 full steps as he made a retreat into the safety of the hallway. Zipper meanwhile got one whiff of the commotion and found someplace (no doubt HIGH off the ground) to observe. She appeared about an hour after the whole thing was over.
So if you haven't gotten a mental image yet... I'm wedged in the back corner of the closet testing each shoe for rats before tossing it in to the middle of the room. Celeste is standing on the futon tenaciously hanging on to the broom... god help the rat if she actually got a chance to swing at it... god help ME if I were within broom-range. I spook the rat who runs straight at me and then across my leg, to the little space between the sliding doors on the closet. The shoe box, that I was hoping to catch the thing in didn't move quite fast enough.:P So as I'm shining a flashlight between the doors, watching this rat run up and down the HEIGHT of the doors... (vertically), Echo, the fearless, fierce hunter that she is, suddenly realizes that there is something going on.... not only is something going on, but it's going on RIGHT WHERE I AM... so now I have a VERY excited Jack Russell Terrier doing handsprings over my head and circling the door. The rat is unfazed... it's just sitting between the doors waiting for something interesting to happen.
Now, I'm still wedged into the back corner of the closet with a flashlight trained on this stupid rat who has now caused me over 20 minutes of grief. Celeste retrieved the blow dart gun from her shelf... which is only equipped with STUN darts, unfortunately.. but I'm doing my best to hold a flashlight in the crack of the doors and aim this blowgun, I guess in hopes of STUNning the rat, while the dog is basically in hysterics. Prince, by the way, is now curled up on the other end of the futon, watching us with that little smirk on his face... you know the one I mean... the one that makes me feel like my name should be Jon Arbuckle, and I'm dumber than Odie.
So I'm smacking this rat with stun darts, which is not only NOT stunning the rat, but could perhaps actually be just slightly annoying him. I could tell it was a him by this point... we have become quite acquainted, as he's facing away from me. In a last minute desperate act, I swipe the dangerous weapon from Celeste's hands (the broom) and manage to spread the space between the doors enough to insert the handle and poke the rat... This of course sends the rat and the dog, who is now barking, into equal amounts of frenzy. The rat leaps out of the space between the doors from about 3' up, directly towards Celeste who screeches, and the dog hurdles me and makes her way over to where the rat landed. The next minute or so is kinda blurry, as I'm now laughing so hard I can't see straight... what I do recall is the dog chasing the rat under the futon under a cat who has suddenly found himself between a excessively excited dog, and a terrified rat... needless to say, Prince made the right decision and moved very quickly out of the way. There was a rather umm.. meaty... crunching sound.. and the dog had a new item to play catch with... except now... as she goes running down the hall way, Celeste and I are chasing her and telling her to drop it, in hopes that it isn't being eaten in front of us, or worse yet, bleeding all over the floor. I managed to persuade Echo to take it outside where I got her to drop the now dead rat. I got a bag and put the corpse in it... and wheeled the trash out to the dumpster.. the dog however is now even more hysterical, because she knows that there was something there.. and now she can't find it... she's retracing her steps from the door to the spot where she dropped it... over and over and over...
I get out to the dumpster with the shopping cart that we use as the trash wagon... just as I throw the bag containing the dead rat into the dumpster a small brown kitten flies out from underneath the dumpster, almost sending me into cardiac arrest.
I'm now in my room typing this and trying to enjoy the twice reheated pizza while Echo is still trying to track the rat from the closet all the way to the door and back .. again and again....thinking, umm... tastes like chicken!
And how was YOUR evening?
posted by Jester at
2:50 AM
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