Oh, Rats

I am known as an animal lover. I have dogs, a cat, chickens, and lambs (well, seasonally as my children are in 4H). There was a time when I volunteered with our local animal shelter as a foster mom for an emaciated, mistreated mother dog and her five puppies, bringing the total of dogs living in my home to nine. I have spent hours and hours researching the best dog food. I have taken in stray cats. I stalked a woman and forced her to become my friend just because she was a veterinarian and I wanted to read all her vet school textbooks and listen to her tell me stories about infected wounds on horses and delivering calves. If I haven't drilled this point home enough by now, let it be known that I am an animal lover.

However, recently, I hit my animal lovin' wall.

We found a rat in our house.

We live in the boonies, so it's no surprise to find a mouse or spiders or a stray chicken. But a rat is cause for concern (as well as much screaming and dancing around on kitchen stools and hoping that someone will have the guts to get down and do something about the rat because there are five of us and only three stools).

You see, rats will eat my food and, as my kids have learned THE HARD WAY, Mommy's food is OFF LIMITS.

So first, I set traps. I set the kind of snap traps that dumb mice have been known to fall for many a time.

The next morning, the snap traps weren't even touched and yet I was missing half a bag of Double Stuff Oreos and we all know that once half a bag of Double Stuff Oreos have been lost to RATS that the other half of the bag is as good as garbage. (I am not so pitiful that I will eat Double Stuff Oreos that have been touched by rat paws. Give me some credit, people.)

It did cross my mind that perhaps this was yet another diet that my husband had masterminded for me. And then I remembered that his name is not Willard and he cannot communicate with rats.

So I went to the store to check out what else was available.

I considered poison, but I was largely worried that once a rat was poisoned that he would crawl into my bed to die and I wouldn't find him until the next time I washed my sheets which could be months—I mean DAYS (days, mom, really!).

So, poison was out.

I looked at rat-trapping contraptions that allowed you to catch a rat without hurting it and free it miles away from your home so it could create a new environment for itself without the intervention of humans. And then I stopped holding hands and singing "Puff, the Magic Dragon" with hippies.

So I turned to the only thing left: glue traps. I bought two of the buggers and set them out that night.

At 2 am, I was wakened by the sound of someone tap-dancing in my kitchen.

Turns out, when a rat is caught in a glue trap, not all of his feet may be caught, making it possible for him to CONTINUE TO MOVE ABOUT YOUR HOME.

Which is what was happening.

Only, this was a frightened rat with a 4x8 inch glue-filled plastic tray attached to three of his feet WHO STARTED SCREAMING IN TERROR THE MINUTE HE/SHE SAW MY HUSBAND, which, BY THE WAY, makes seeing a glue-trap-free rat waltzing about your kitchen eating Double Stuff Oreos seem like a WALK IN THE PARK.

My husband made quick work of the rat (and I'll spare you the details since life on the farm isn't exactly something most people want to read about on a website devoted to large lasses) and we went back to sleep. As if I actually could sleep.

But since then, the Double Stuff Oreos haven't been touched—well, by rats. I called open season on Double Stuff Oreos at about 3:15 am after laying awake for an hour and thinking about how setting chubby girl-sized glue traps all over the kitchen might actually be a good diet plan for me after all.

Comments

[Sue]

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[Sue]

I loved the rat story. I see you dancing around your kitchen, one foot in glue and one hand reaching for the Oreos.

[GAF]

ICKICKICK

We only had mice in our house when I was a kid. My mom used to set out dishtubs full of water to soak her nylons and the mice would drown in them. So then Mom started setting mousetraps. Once my sister found a still-alive mouse in the trap and she felt sorry for it and let it go--in the house!

[Melanie]

We used those traps once, for some odd reason. The only thing to get stuck in it was me. I stuck my hand up under this little table-y thing in my room ( i think I was after an earring or something) and stuck my hand in it. That stuff is sticky. Dont let no one lie to ya