This Is War!

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 Friday I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing weekend.  I had purposely not made any plans, just thinking I would get the house cleaned and laundry done, and was looking forward to some quiet time with a good book.  Not exactly how it turned out.

Saturday, I did relax and managed to do very little - very nice actually. You should try it some time.  That evening, I went out for a while with a good friend, listened to some music, watched the baseball game, and had a bite to eat before crashing and looking forward to sleeping in Sunday.  That's where things started going wrong.

Sunday morning, I woke up to the phone.  It was my sister, who I hadn't talked to for a while, and I jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes and ventured out in the kitchen while talking to her.  

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On my newly vacuumed floor, there were little pieces of something all around the dishwasher, and I was rubbing my eyes trying to figure out what it was, when I heard something moving around behind my refrigerator....oh crap!!  My neighbor had informed me a rat got in to his place, and I had heard something in my wall, but was so sure that I had managed to close off every possible entry way...apparently not.  My worst fear proved to be true...a disgusting creature all of a sudden crawled out from behind the refrigerator, prompting me to scream at the top of my lungs....who wouldn't? The crazy woman approach worked, and the nasty critter scurried back behind  the refrigerator, leaving me enough time to get out of the kitchen. What would a sane person do next?  I have no idea.  My approach was to run screaming out of my apartment, barefoot and in next to nothing clothing, and bang on my neighbor's door for help. Sadly he was still in bed, and not at all concerned with my humungous critter invader problem.  He did call me though in an effort to calm me down.  Didn't work!  

With all doors to other rooms securely closed, and confident the monster was still hiding behind the refrigerator, I found shoes and a sweater, and headed for Home Depot to get traps, and promptly locked myself out of my apartment...who has time to think of bringing the right keys in such an emergency?

Luckily Home Depot was not very busy, and a sweet lady helped me find traps, talked me through my mental breakdown and assured me these would kill the bastard.  I bough a couple extra for good measure and headed back home.

After successfully breaking in to my own home (if things get any worse, it's good to have a plan B...), I found that the little f*@&er was gone from behind the refrigerator, leaving me even more freaked out, not knowing where he was now hiding. I stomped around the kitchen and talked very loudly to myself (kinda fitting with the crazy lady image I was portraying at the time...) hoping to scare him enough to stay away until I got the traps set. 

The traps were placed strategically (yeah right, like I was in any way capable of thinking strategy at the time....) around the kitchen, and yours truly grabbed a bag of clothes, toiletries and the laptop and headed out the door.  I called my friend to let her know I was moving in before I got there, and luckily she's that kind a friend....no way in hell was I staying at my own place!!

After showering and eating at my friend's place (both completely unthinkable thinks to do with an invader in my own place), she accompanied me back to check on the progress of my hunt.  Got him!!  Not touching it!  Ran back to my neighbor who at this time is laughing at my being hysterical over a dead rat....really?!?  Whatever, he at least got it out of my house.  Still no way in hell I was staying there.  Kids had now arrived home, and were actually sad to see I had killed it.  "Why couldn't we just keep it?"  Are you effing kidding me??? So with traps reset - maybe now with an ounce of actual strategy, I took the kids back to my friend's house. Again, she is that kind of friend, and welcomed us in to her house to stay as long as we needed. (Not wanting to ruin our friendship, I didn't want to tell her I really wanted to just move in for good...one day at a time;  one day at a time...)

Monday morning, I head back to my place to check again.  It took a while to muster up the courage to go in, but when I finally did, it was nice to see all the traps empty, and I all of a sudden was confident that little bastard was a loaner....well, if he had shown the way to anyone else, I was certainly not leaving an invitation for his friends and family to come look for him.  Emergency home repairs would be done. Immediately!  Armed with my Nickelback shirt which proudly displays in pink on the back "This Means War!", the kitchen was promptly torn completely apart to find where he had gotten in, only to discover the half ass craftsmanship of the installation of the cabinets. Whatever!!  Back to Home Depot we go,  now with measurements of gaps and possible openings for the invader to get through.  

Steel wool they say is a good tool...if you own stock in a steel wool company, you probably earned some money yesterday. There is about as much steel wool as wall behind my cabinets at this time.  Sealed with an overabundance of foam spray.  Pretty?  Well, hell no.  Do I care?  Not at all, if it ensures nothing else is able to get in here. Seriously, have you ever looked in the back of your cabinets to see how "pretty" it looks?  Not me either...I will going forward though, just to ensure the same shitty craftsman hasn't been on the loose. 

Cleaned it all up, reset traps, and left again.  I might have spent all day at home, but there was still no way I would eat  there, so back to my friend's house we go. Dirty and smelly as I was, my friend still offered to let us stay....she is so good!  Everyone needs a friend like her!  But we left, with the promise that if I heard a sound that didn't belong, we would be back. 

Laundry never got done Sunday (not my fault!!), and the kids were out of school uniforms...so reluctantly I agree to run a load through, but only if they accompany me to the laundry room. After all, it would be much easier for a rat to get in there, than in to my kitchen, and I am not taking any chances. My son finds this hysterical, and after first yelling "look out, there's a rat" and then "OMG there's a roach" (that's right, I am not a fan of bugs either), I almost ran him over with my basket and threatened to lock him in there if he didn't stop.  Roaring laughter was all the respect I got in response....

Since I sent the kids off to bed, laundry just had to wait till morning; no way was I going there by myself in the dark.  To be sure there really wasn't any more critters in our place, I decided to sit guard (not really, I was just afraid of going to bed), but by 2:30 I figured it was probably safer in my bedroom than in the living room anyway, and got at least a few hours of sleep. Not nearly enough though...hopefully tonight will be better.  And don't you dare say, "what's the big deal, it's just a rat"...there is no such thing as "just a rat".  They are disgusting, vile creatures....I am pretty certain they are one of God's mistakes (I sometimes say my ex is one of his others, but that, I guess is up for discussion), and I cannot think of any good reason for any rat to live - at least not in the city. 

We are now on day two of empty traps. Think I have won my war for now, but this is one I really do not ever want to fight again.  I do however realize I would be useless in any real war (don't get me wrong -  this is all too real for me!!), as one day of working my ass off followed by just a few hours of sleep, has left me dazed and confused...I would tell you anything now, just to get some sleep.  Useless, I tell you, which is why I think peace is the way to go - just not when it comes to rats.