Friday, July 16, 2004

muzing # 031: rats!

Evidently I have an alarmingly overwhelming fear of rats. I discovered this fear approximately fifteen minutes ago when, as I was seated here minding my own business cruising through other people's blogs, a rat ran across the floor right by my slippered feet.
 
Yes, not some cute little grey mouse but a BIG UGLY BROWN RAT!!!
 
Now, I'm not one for swearing but I let one rip as the rat scuttled under my bookshelf. Luckily my folks arrived home not two minutes later from their evening out to be welcomed by me with the words "I found the rat!"
 
See, we knew we had a rat. Or a mouse. Or some critter with lots of teeth that had tucked into a banana on our kitchen bench last night.
 
On our KITCHEN BENCH!
 
ew ew EW!!!
 
We managed to coax it out of hiding, at which point it took a leap off the top of the stairwell into the downstairs room. Then followed approximately ten minutes of my mother, father and I rigging traps and attempting to catch the rat. Actually, it was more like ten minutes of my mother and I standing on couches and tables, squealing "THERE IT GOES! EEEEE!" while my father grew increasingly frustrated with our lack of tangible assistance in trapping the cunning critter. (Though my screaming did send it scurrying in the opposite direction!)
 
This is the third rat that's been around here in the past few weeks. The first one my father and I saw lying dead in the gutter across the road, while the second was found lying dead in our garden. They're getting closer!!
 
I'm thinking of calling in the Pied Piper. Anyone know his number?
 
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feeling: grossed out and scaredy!
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4 comments:

Ben said...

Tell me you videotaped this!!

We haven't had rats in a while (yay!) and hopefully now they (the builders, not the rats) have cleared away the wild grass behind us and put houses up, that will have shifted the rats further away.

I've heard it's a problem with brick houses though. Rats can squeeze through the tiny gaps. Not sure exactly why there must be gaps, I suspect ventilation. Still, their are advantages to living in brick houses. For one thing, wolves have more trouble blowing them down. In that regard, bricks are much better than hay and sticks.

Pickwick said...

So your Room 101 is the same as Winston Smith's?

Hugh said...

A friend of mine who lives in Toowong doesn't have rats...the reason is a 2.5m snake lives somewhere close by...and for a while it kept on trying to get inside the kitchen window. Me and another friend tried to put it in a heshen bag but it was tooooo strong. Whilst I don't like the look of rats, I'd prefer them over massive snakes any day. hehe.

MuzeKez said...

Ben: You raise a good point there - if I have to make a choice between having rats come into the house or a wolf being able to blow my house down, I'll take the rats. No house of straw or sticks for me!

Pickwick: In my ignorance I had to investigate who Winston Smith was, and I can now say that yes, my Room 101 is the same. Bad enough having a rat dash past my foot, let alone have a plague of them gnawing off my face. Ugh!

verbs: Aha! So your comment was a roundabout way of suggesting I invest in a new pet? Of the long and slithering persuasion? To be honest, I'm not sure which I find worse, snakes or rats. Will have to reserve judgement till a huge snake slithers past my feet one unsuspecting evening!