After living Nathan Lane's role in the movie Mousehunt Wednesday night, I'm happy to report that Thursday evening was 100% rodent-free--no mice, rats or 'possums in sight.
That doesn't mean it was necessarily peaceful.
I live in an old apartment building, built sometime in the 1920s and full of "character." It creaks whenever anyone takes a step. It groans when someone moves down the stairs. It sometimes makes noises all by itself, without anyone doing anything at all.
Most nights, these noises aren't a problem; they aren't even really noticable. But after a night like the Girlish Girls and I had Wednesday, every sound was magnified, every creak and groan a potential horde of pests, every fleeting movement caught out of the corner of the eye some fresh menace.
It didn't help in the least that Olivia kept searching the apartment for her loud, furry playmate, crawling under the bed and pawing at the bathroom door (which was closed--not because it was the last place the rat had been, but because I'd poured Liquid Plumr down the bathtub drain), fueling my already mounting paranoia. (Ms. Christopher, on the other hand, didn't care in the least and spent most of the evening curled up under the badly sagging loveseat.)
Of course, there was nothing there--nothing but what my mind could conjure, anyway. So instead of seeing a dagger floating before me as Macbeth did after murdering Banquo, I saw rats in every shadow, heard them in every echo from without or within, felt them brush my ankles in bed when I was, as always, alone.
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3 comments:
You managed the paranoia well, dude. I would have been a nervous wreck, expecting the ungrateful rat to return with reinforcement and run me out of my own home! I swear, I'm so despise rats and mice (I'm trying to understand how you can tell the diff between a big mouse and a baby rat) that seeing one at my crib could amount to a lease-breaking issue. For real. I thought having cats in keeps rodents out, yet both you and Dee have had the heinous cross-breeders attempt to share space with the Girlish Girls and The Fabulous Ms. Gigi.
I hope you and Dee don't expect me to sit through "Ratatouille" anytime soon.
If the rat had (or does) return, I'm not sure I could be charitable a second time--I'd have to do something more lethal than "catch & release."
More than one co-worker has asked, "Are you sure it wasn't just a big mouse?" First, it was too big to be a mouse. Second..."just"? It was a rodent. In my apartment. Mickey had to go.
If I believed that this were an infestation rather than a random incursion, it would certainly be a lease-breaker. As it is, I'll be on the lookout for signs of any other activity--if I see anything that looks like we've had more short furry tourists, my landlord better call Orkin.
I am still trying to wrap my head around the rat story. OMFG!
Totally off topic.
I am all caught up on Food Network Chef. Now we can discuss.
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