Close Encounters with the Animal Kingdom

I have learned something new this week here in Tansen:  Lift up the toilet seat before sitting to see if anything has decided to take up residence while the toilet has been unoccupied!  I went to have a nice quiet visit to the toilet, and after sitting for a moment, realized I felt something tickling my leg.  I assumed it was a thread or something, but when I looked, I discovered to my horror a cockroach running down my leg into my trousers!!  Well – I am glad I wasn’t on video while I did the “remove your pants to get the cockroach out” dance!  I then smashed the offending bug on the floor of the bathroom.  Les chose that moment to arrive home, where he found me still frowning at the dead roach and moaning about being too old for these kind of dance maneuvers….  (Plus I hate cockroaches).

We had gotten complacent about leaving food out – until the other day when we discovered that a rat had decided to make his way into our kitchen again.  He had gotten into the sesame seeds which Didi had left out to dry – and had knocked over several other items therefore making his presence known.  We decided to look for him – and found him hiding behind the counters in the kitchen.  We armed ourselves with sticks, put down a couple of the “sticky” traps, and closed the doors to the kitchen.  Then we launched Operation: Kill the Rat.  We took turns poking the sticks under the counters to chase the rat out, but he was too quick for us to hit when he came out – he would quickly reverse back under the counter again.  (It probably didn’t help that Debbie refused to be on the floor – but was trying to stand on a chair and lean over to whack at the rat from her safe perch!)

At one point, Les cornered the creature, and gave it several good blows with the stick, but the mouse got out, ran down the hall, and Debbie managed to get off her chair long enough to open the door to the porch and shove the rat outside.  Whew!  (By the way – the rat ran right over the sticky traps – didn’t slow him a bit.  Waste of money…. I thought…)

Well – Les was sure this was one rat which would never come into our house again because he had hit it pretty hard.  So – Les went off to work, which included night call that day.  At bedtime, Debbie closed all the doors in hopes of keeping any rats from getting into the various rooms, but about 1 am she heard something in the hall on a plastic bag.  She cautiously opened the bedroom door with a slipper in hand (the only weapon in the bedroom) and found herself pretty much eye to eye with the rat who was sitting on the counter in the hall on top of a bag of corn chips.  Fortunately, he hadn’t opened them!  So – Debbie summoned her courage, and smashed the rat with the slipper, sending it flying down the steep stairs to the cement landing one floor down.  The rat was stunned (and we think it was still hurting from the beating from Les) so was still for a few moments.  Debbie tried to go down and push it out the front door, but the rat ran behind a set of shelves.  Debbie put traps around (including the sticky one – this time baited with bread), went back up and closed all the doors again and went back to bed.

About 5:30 am, Debbie heard the rat again.  She carefully went down the stairs, and found the rat actually stuck to the sticky trap and unable to run away.  She fearlessly placed a bucket over the rat, and left the work of getting rid of him to Les – definitely the man’s job at our house!

When Les arrived home after call at 8 am, Debbie met him at the door and said – the rat is under the bucket – please remove him somehow!!  Thanks, Les, for dispatching the rat and allowing the file on Operation: Kill the Rat to be closed.  Hopefully forever!!