This picture circa 2007 featuring Adam (look at that hair!), our old bunny Mister Carl, and RatBaby, one of those tiny rubber things you soak in water until it grows to 128x its size. This is what I’m picturing our current uninvited guest to look like – red eyes and all.
Have you ever wondered what you would choose to wear if you were 8.5 months pregnant, sitting in bed drinking contraband cappuccino, when your husband started shouting that he’s discovered a rather large rat under your kitchen sink?
Well! Wonder no more! THIS is what you would wear.
Shorts and a tank top because it’s hot. (Still.) Giant rubber boots because RAT! RAT! IN MY HOUSE!
I can’t even put into words how much this situation disgusts and disturbs me. Rodents. In my HOUSE! Crawling all over things and dragging their gross hairless tails and OH MY GOD I can’t even.
The good news (can there be good news here? Really?) is that I think we caught it, (them?) early. In my crazy nesting I completely cleaned and organized under our kitchen sink no more than two weeks ago. Yesterday I discovered the first, ahem, evidence of rodents under that same kitchen sink. So I have the small consolation that this is a new problem, not one we have been living with for ages without noticing.
Also good news: the infestation seems to be confined to under our kitchen sink. And I know this because I made Adam pull out the stove and the fridge, and I checked all the cupboards and every corner of every room and in between swearing and cringing and wailing “Why?! WHY is this happening? Why now?” I am happy to report that we did not discover evidence of critters anywhere else.
Mice and rats are really common around these parts, because we are so very close to the water. Almost everyone I know has dealt with this situation at some point, but sweet lord it doesn’t make it easier, doesn’t make the disgust abate any.
Adam called our landlord who sent over someone from pest control, a super young guy who was SO uber-enthusiastic about things. This guy LOVED his job! He was fascinated by trying to find out where they were coming from (most likely up through the crawl space, through holes that the under-sink plumbing run through) and couldn’t wait to tell me all sort of facts about pests and mice and rats and my god, I will never be as excited about anything as this guy was about killing rodents.
So he set a few traps and laid out some poison (pregnancy-safe, he assured me, unless I inexplicably dug it out of the container with a spoon and ate it in large quantities. After saying this he stared at me for a few moments until I assured him that no, no I would not be doing that.) and everything was fine. It was being handled.Dealt with.
And then this morning happened.
What are you smiling about? And why is your shirt covered in blood?
It started perfectly, nice snuggles, sun streaming through the window, baby happily thumping away, and the best part – a delicious, frothy cappuccino, sipped leisurely because apparently I care about cappuccinos more than the health of my unborn child.
And then I made the mistake of asking Adam to check the traps (so that I wouldn’t have to be the one to discover a DeadMau5) and then Adam, ADAM made the mistake of shouting “OH MY GOD” repeatedly from the kitchen in a panicked voice as my blood pressure rose and rose with each exclamation.
MEN: Do not do this. When your wife asks you to check traps designed to maim/kill disgusting creatures inside your home, whatever you find, just dispose of it and pretend you found nothing. DO NOT do what Adam did. Which was to give me a running commentary on the situation that sounded something like this:
Oh yeah there’s definitely something in there. I think it’s a rat! It’s WAY too big to be a mouse! I can see it’s tail. Holy SHIT that’s a big tail, imagine how big the rat is! Ohhhhh god it’s moving. IT’S STILL MOVING! OKAY I HAVE TO KILL IT RIGHT? I’m going to kill it, give me something heavy – what do we have that’s heavy that you don’t mind me killing a rat with? Oh god this is gross I’m going to need gloves – where are my work gloves? (goes to find work gloves, comes back) OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD IT’S GONE! MADELEINE the rat is GONE!
Throughout this panicked monologue I am in bed shrieking at him that I don’t want to know, I do not want to know about the rat, DO NOT TELL ME ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT THE RAT and then he starts yelling about it being “gone” and I fucking lose my mind.
Gone? Do not say that. Gone WHERE, exactly? Have you just unleashed a giant rat into my house? Am I going to be scurried across shortly? I DO NOT LIKE SCURRYING! SCURRYING. DO NOT WANT.
Turns out he wisely shut the cupboard doors before going to find his work gloves (which he needed to do what exactly…strangle it to death? I didn’t ask.) and when he opened the doors again said rat had disappeared from whence he came.
But still. RAT. IN MY HOUSE.
So rainboots all day. I’m not opening that cupboard door ever again today or possibly just ever…ever. And this guy? This guy who usually drives me crazy by following me around from room to room? Today I can’t keep him close enough.
