Posts from — September 2009

There’s been little time for other things around the Yestertimeosphere lately, as we have been entertaining a guest, or according to the very informative hardware store guy who directed me to the d-Con aisle last weekend, guests.  Fun Fact #1: if you have one rat, you have at least two and as many as nine! (OOOOMMMMMGGGGG).

With the weather turning cooler and several construction projects happening right around our house (one of the from-scratch, foundation dug out variety) and the fact that this (older) house has been experiencing a lot of stuff shuffling in the past month or so, we have had several encounters with the local rodentia. Our first casualty was a small innocent bag of cinnamon raisin bagels and the next night, even after measures were taken and access to the pantry shelves blocked, a full loaf of bread and a box of vanilla wafers were left in such a state that upon seeing them I gasped and covered the childrens’ eyes. Fun Fact #2: rats can jump up to three feet vertically! (HAPPY NIGHTMARES!)

The first morning we noticed the pantry carnage, I was scanning around the room trying to figure out where something could have entered, and was carefully using the word “critter” because a.) I was being optimistic that the problem was small cute-ish mice or possibly fairy sprites maybe. I was leaving the options open, and b.) I wasn’t sure of how the term rat would be taken by the four-year-old member of the house, given that he once wouldn’t go near the couch for a whole day because he was afraid the skunk sticker he’d lost underneath it was going to come alive. So it seemed to me that caution might be appropriate.

At one point I got down on the floor to peer into the cracks in the cabinet next to the dishwasher when Noah’s brown mopped head appeared on my level and after we solemnly scanned the dark for a moment, he turned to me in all seriousness and said, “Well, I don’t think it’s a bear.”

The exterminator confirmed that we could definitely consider it a rat problem – Fun Fact #3: Rats’ presence can be identified by the droppings they leave, and they do this copiously! For your convenience! – but he has since had to cancel his treatment visit twice due to illness. Therefore he will be arriving on my birthday to do his best to ensure that along with some flowers and maybe a card or two, I will be gifted with two to nine rat carcasses.  I really never imagined that on my birthday wish list I would sincerely include “dead rodents.” But right now I honestly can’t think of a gift that would make me happier.

Thank God it wasn’t actually bears.  Those would be a bitch to wrap.