The Rat Stops Here




 

 


On the surface of things, I live alone with a dog. Under the surface, however, there seems to be an increasingly long list of freeloading roommates around here. We’ve had alligator lizards and stray birds make guest appearances in the living room. The raccoons are probably close to pulling off the same stunt as did the malevolent psycho Michael Keaton portrayed in that flick "Pacific Heights," forcing me out so they can take possession of the place. Although raccoons are so shrewd they might just apply an eminent domain clause to the situation and get me ousted that way.


Such is the case I suppose when one lives in Cinderella’s coach. That’s a nice way of saying a mobile home coach, which is a nice way of saying a trailer. A tin can. Drafty, with a suspect roof and non-existent insulation, and sits on pylons or old tires, with a nice yawning gap between home and ground. Rain knocks out the phone service and something ate my heating system.


"Yup," a heating technician told me, "something got up or got down and probably gnawed your ducts." So out of eight forced air heating vents in the ceilings, only two work. Winters, I spend a lot of time huddling in one place or the other in my house, wearing clothing I’d once dreamed I could symbolically burn on a pyre and never miss again once I left the Northeast.


Critters need to know their place, and that their main mailing address should not coincidentally be the same as mine. We’ve had an overflow of unwanted guests lately. At least the rattlesnake was thoughtful enough to make its visitation under the deck rather than in the middle of my bedroom. Him I could handle with my shovel. Then, when I ousted him, the next interloper arrived and I regretted asking the venomous reptile to relocate, since the new guest was considered a choice morsel on the snake’s diet.


It arrived at dusk, this new face in town. I was getting ready to leave the house, which I don’t really need to bother locking because any critter that wants to is able to breach the security of locks, doors and walls. The dog was already out on the patio waiting for me and I noticed she was involved in some type of face-off with something lurking near my big oak tree. It couldn’t have been anything as exciting as a cat or raccoon or as interesting as a turtle (they slide down from our community’s lake but mercifully I have not yet discovered one of them in my bathtub, although I regularly shower with frogs) because her demeanor was too calm.


She actually looked a little intimidated and made no motion to approach the strange visitor. I peered in the direction she was staring in and there was the most enormous rat I’ve ever encountered, very thick steel-gray fur and a teardrop shaped body as big as my toaster. Actually if not for the long rat-like tail I wouldn’t have been so sure of the species because I couldn’t make out its face really clearly. Then again I wasn’t too enthused to try. I remember "Ben" and "Willard."


I have spent a lot of time in the South, where we say "Git!" and "So’s your mama!" which I hurled at the rat, who remained utterly unimpressed with what we Rebels yell. He seemed absolutely unafraid of me or the dog and regarded us seemingly as obstacles to his entry into what my bill of sale says is my home.


Something that large invading my home was a singularly disgusting thought. But not a surprising one, to be honest. For several months, I have heard rats in my ceilings, sharpening their teeth and probably finishing off the two ducts they missed previously. Some nights, I hear them under the kitchen sink. One recent night, I heard one carousing in the cabinet of my bathroom, adjacent to my bedroom, but I was too tired and too chicken to go confront something that could make so big a racket.


So I say to this canine pal o’ mine who is protectress of the household and whose nickname (well, the one suitable for a family publication anyway) is the Velveteen Samurai Beagle-Blend, "Do something! Scare it off!" To which her Ladyship beats it inside the still-open screen door and I swear if she could have pulled it shut behind her she would have done so.


"Ugh. Vermin," she could be heard muttering as she found a comfortable piece of furniture to climb up on that would keep her out of the fray. All this time the rat remained motionless except for the occasional blink of its eyes.


"You’re ugly. You’re vermin. Vamoose!" I tried. My young cohort Lauren has a pet rat named Mr. O whom Lauren insists be allowed to run up my arm so he can sit on my shoulder and nibble my ear lobe, which I allow only because I love her, not the rat. "A rat’s a rat," I tell her Dad when Lauren leaves the room for a moment, "Get him offa me NOW!" But Mr. O is kind of cute. This interloper is kind of hideous. From a distance I lob a rock his way but instead of exiting the premises he sidles into one of my shrubs. Oh great. We have a rattler under the front deck and now a rat that could enter the Guinness Book of World Records uncontested as the largest rodent living in a shrub on the patio.


I go for the hose. If I let him stay, his next strategy will be home invasion, and I already know I cannot count on the Samurai Beagle to pounce and rid us of this particular guest. Boy but I am really nervous and can’t seem to get the kinks out of the hose or the water turned on and aimed for the longest time then I douse and douse until finally he gets the message and waddles over to my calla lilies and stalls there beside the little creeklet that runs through the backyard.


"You ain’t staying, bud!" I holler and aim. He dives into the creeklet, swims to the opposite side then burrows into the base of the vast ivy-blanketed slope that rises above my house and probably is home to more rats than the New York City sewer system. A long strand of ivy trembles, marking his progress up the slope.


That night when I get off work it’s a real cautious approach to the house. I even fling back the shower curtain, to make sure some wildebeest hasn’t dropped in. Nothing but spiders and the dumb frog who keeps coming back no matter how many times I drop him off in the front yard. There’s the familiar clatter of rats in the ceiling. Once in bed I draw the covers up to my nose, and dream of a condo in Redondo.


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