That evening Sam got home and did his manly duty of checking under the sink at the request of his ridiculously cowardly wife. No mouse or rat was present, but a hole chewed through the drywall under the sink left no doubt that there had been one. Eeps! My creative husband's solution was to find a piece of cardboard, soak it in the nastiest stuff possible in the garage, and pin it up over the rodent hole. "Eat through that, Sucker," was Sam's thought. I decided to take a different approach and went out the next day to buy some mouse traps and bait. I was quick to hand over these goodies to Sam as I still had vowed to not enter the rodent-cave and therefore assumed no responsibility. And so under the sink they went, still in the shopping bag, just waiting for the rodent to be curious enough to chew the packaging eager to gnaw to its death.
The following Monday I awoke at 5:15 am to the slamming of the door leading to the garage. It was slightly on the early side for Sam to be up, but whatever, and so I rolled over and tried to sleep. Slam. Slam. Errrrrch. Thump. Slam. This had gone on for about 10 minutes when my morning fuzzed brain registered that these noises were not Sam making a lunch. I, Jenni-zilla, wresteled my robe on and marched down the stairs to give my husband an eyefull of the consequences of not letting me get my beauty sleep. My jaw dropped as I rounded the corner to the kitchen. There was Sam, mop in hand and bucket by his side, standing in a pool of water that extended from the kitchen all the way to the family room.
"Your rat is back," Sam cursed bitterly.
He then showed me under the sink where yet another hole had been chewed through the drywall, and the size of this hole clearly indicated that our hungry critter was indeed a rat. Next Sam showed me where the rat had proceeded to chomp away at the hose leading to the dishwasher, thus the pool of water we were wading in. Ironically, the bait had been flooded by the water and the mouse traps would have been useless by their size.
We then started mopping up the mess and began to discover our laminate flooring was bubbling and water was squeezing up through the cracks as we walked. I was quickly discovering what I was going to be doing for the rest of the day. After we completed mopping up the water, Sam headed off to work leaving me with my imagination running wild.
Part of my brain envisioned Remy (the chef rat from Ratatouille) cooking in my kitchen at night, which in a way would explain why I constantly find more leftovers in my refrigerator than I expect. The other part of my brain imagined this friendly culinary rat morphing into a huge villainous rat during the daytime while Sam is at work. This evil rat has oily black fur, a long pointy snout, gleaming razon sharp teeth, and tummy bulging over his feet full with food from my trash can. Oh yes, the red beady eyes also complete this vision as well.
Much to my delight, my rat visions and anxiety about home repair were subsided by the fact that our friend Nathan was in town for the day. He helped pick out and install a new hose for the dishwasher. We also picked out rat traps and bait which got a lot more attention from Sam this time around. With traps set and bait positioned, Sam and I laid our heads to rest on our pillows that night.
The next morning we woke up to a bait dish that had been visited by hungry creatures, but the rat traps had not been touched. Was this the end of the rats? Only time would tell…
