Anyone who has tried to get rid of a rodent knows you can end up feeling like a Looney Tunes cartoon of Moby Dick. I wrote this after I finally killed a particularly crafty rat who avoided my trap for months.
I began stalking “The Rat,” as I came to know him, thirty-seven months ago. At first, I thought I would just buy some rat poison and get rid of him. I put it out in bowls and across the floors. The Rat sniffed at it and bypassed it as though it came from last season’s trendy vegan restaurant. Being a master chemist, I decided to combine it with bacon grease, sugar, and maple syrup. Luckily, the Rat decided it was tasty and ate it all.
And then he came back for more.
Apparently, I had made him a lovely Thanksgiving feast, and he wanted seconds. And pie.
The rat poison was not working.
So, I spent a couple of weeks engineering a hunting platform on top of a ladder. If it worked for deer, it would work for a rat. I welded and crafted a tower beyond compare. I carved a longbow from yew wood, sanded and varnished it, and stretched a taught bow capable of launching an arrow deep into The Rat’s chest.
I gathered wild turkey feathers for the fletchings. I smelted steel into razor-sharp arrowheads. Seventeen arrows were carefully manufactured and stored in my hand-sewn leather quiver.
I sat in the Rat Tower for days waiting for His Eminence to present himself, subsisting on dried beef, twigs, and nuts. Finally, he got tired of eating insulation and dead bugs and came sniffing around the edges of some stacked boards.
I nocked an arrow, took aim, and released a deadly missile. It flew five feet to the side of him and thwacked into the floor of the landing. I fell off my tower and landed butt-first on my remaining sixteen arrows.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he asked.
“I’m going to kill you,” I calmly replied while plucking arrows from my backside.
“You aren’t doing a very good job of it,” he smugly answered and took a chunk of rat poison back to his hidey-hole for lunch.
I decided a duck-blind would be a better option.
Seven days I labored, constructing the perfect rat-blind from discarded wood and branches. I spent another four days whittling a Mrs. Rat Decoy from a log. When my hide-out was perfected, I sat waiting with a double-barreled shotgun for The Rat.
I cupped my hands to my mouth and delivered a rat call slowly and softly to lure him to my waiting trap.
“Cheeeeeeese. Cheeeeeeeeeeeese,” I cooed.
Sure enough, The Rat couldn’t resist and came looking for the cheese.
I raised the shotgun, took aim, and blew a hole in the floorboards seven feet to the right of him. Mrs. Rat Decoy teetered on the edge of the gaping hole for a moment before she fell to her death.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he asked.
“I’m going to kill you,” I calmly replied as I nibbled on a piece of Limburger cheese I took from my back pocket.
Camouflage was the best thing, I brainstormed.
I spent twelve days sewing a rat-in-a-slinky-sequined-dress costume from muslin and discarded fur. Creating a tail from old rubber tires. Scenting it with Rat scent—urine and droppings I painstakingly collected from crawling along the pathways he traveled.
Finally, my camouflage was complete. I made rat-in-heat noises (like you do) to draw him from his lair, waiting with a machete to chop him in two.
He succumbed to the siren call and came sniffing around my high heels. I raised the machete, swung wildly at my deadly foe, and buried the knife halfway in the floor—three feet to the left of him. I dropped my matching sequined handbag.
“Nice purse. Is that all you’ve got?” he asked as he dodged a heel I chucked in his direction.
“I’m going to kill you,” I calmly replied.
He stole my purse.
Bare-chested Greco-Roman wrestling. That was the obvious answer!
I spent three weeks grinding dyes and rendering lard. I stripped down to my boxer briefs, greased myself up with warrior paint, and assumed a sumo stance, waiting for his answer.
Of course, he couldn’t resist the challenge and came to meet me face-to-muzzle.
We eyed each other across the landing, sizing each other up. We charged forward and slammed into each other with the force of stampeding, rabid rhinoceroses. We bit, we clawed, we fought, we wrestled, but neither of us could gain an advantage over the other.
After ten hours of fighting, we called a truce.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he asked.
“I’m going to kill you,” I calmly replied before I went to bathe in dish soap and he took a chunk of rat poison home for dinner to replenish his strength.
Artillery! Why didn’t I think of it before?
After a trip to the Army Surplus store, I came home with a dozen grenades, a missile launcher, a flamethrower, and several landmines.
I spent a week baking a barrel full of Ranch Chex Party Mix. I ate the Chex squares, threw the pretzels away, and laid out a trail of seasoned peanuts.
Decked out in a full set of S.W.A.T. body armor and shield, I waited for my adversary to present himself for battle.
After another week of waiting, he snuck around the corner and spied me, ready to pounce.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he asked.
“Isn’t it enough?” I asked this time, macing both of us in the process.
He sighed, agreed that it probably was, and at long last trotted over and committed suicide in a two-dollar rat trap I that had smeared with peanut butter seven weeks ago.
You've got a quirky idea that you spin into a wildly inventive and interesting tale. I enjoyed your piece, George, although I am reluctant to read longer pieces of prose on this site. Well done. You deserve some encouragement as a new member to AD.
PS: I also liked the summary write up for your book, but couldn't leave a comment on that link.
