Oh, Rats!

    Some mornings you just want to climb back into bed and pull the covers up over your head and pretend that you don’t have to face the day. What made me want to retreat to my bed this morning was discovering rodent droppings on my table. IN my favorite cups, no less. Judging from the size of these dropping, no mere mouse did this. I then heard suspicious rustling under the sink. Great. A rat. This is not how I wanted to start my day. I couldn’t even get a cup of tea first to fortify me against this brash intrusion. I stifled the urge to run off to the RoVers Roost Clubhouse (where we are boondocking) and find a sympathetic ear and maybe some good advice as to how to vanquish this foe. Instead I stood and stared at my blissfully sleeping hubby until he woke up so I wouldn’t have to deal with this alone.

     I realize that in times of crisis women want to clump together (hence my urge to run off and find someone sympathetic), and men prefer to solve the problem on their own. Since I didn’t feel so awake and chipper, I decided to support my husband’s method and gave him the facts. We did some investigating and found where the rat had traveled from under the kitchen sink behind the stove and fridge to the bathroom sink. Pulling out drawers and stuff, we saw the evidence of his presence including a chewed up plastic bag.  I saw my neighbor walking her cat and quipped that if he was a hunter, I had a job for him! She offered me some Irish Spring soap bars to put under the cabinets since that is known to drive critters away. I decided to give it a try and whether it was that or our banging around in the recessed of our kitchen, he appears to have exited.

    We also were alerted by our neighbor that her cat had discovered a diamondback rattlesnake who was near us, but fortunately on the other side of the wall. We even got to hear his rattle. It was our day for critters!