We have had a rodent about our place. I've seen its droppings outside. I've heard something scurrying behind our compost bin in the backyard. And I was quite sure the little beast was eating our chicken food that the chickens drop through their hutch.
One evening I baited several mice traps with peanut butter covered nuts and set them out beneath the chicken hutch. I caught nothing and so I set them off and took them inside. I didn't want the children finding them.
And then just yesterday, Rose bolted into the kitchen where I was making dinner and flung her arms around my waist. "Mommy," she said with a quiver in her voice. "I saw the rat! I saw it! It ran behind the dryer!"
Our washer and dryer are in a little hut in the backyard, which we've aptly named the laundry hut. It was once a children's playhouse. Now it's the tool shed and laundry facilities and termite buffet and, apparently, rodent hang out. Thinking the rat had probably bolted by now, I went out to the laundry hut to have a look. Rose hissed at me from outside the hut. "No! It's behind the dryer!"
I had to climb up on top of the washer and dryer in order to see down behind them. There indeed was the rat. A horrendously large brown rodent about the side of an eggplant. I immediately got the willies and then realized this was war.
The rodent was here. I had to do something. I couldn't simply let it get away. I must terminate it, but all my mouse traps were too small for this behemoth, and besides, it was way down there behind the dryer.
That's when I remembered my husband's pellet rifle, the gun that he occasionally uses to shoot noisy parrots off the telephone wires. I'd seen him use it and had some vague idea of how to use it so I dashed indoors and found the dusty rifle in the closet. I wiped off the scope and spilled pellet on the ground while fumbling to get one between my fingers.
I discovered how to break the barrel enough to insert a pellet, and then I dashed out to the laundry room. The rat was still there. There was nothing else to it, but to stand on top of the washing machine so that I had enough room to aim the long barrel down at the rat. This is exactly what I did, trying to focus through the scope for several seconds and having no luck.
That's when I realized I had no idea what I was doing. I'd never fired this gun. I wasn't even sure how to fire it. Yes, there was a trigger. There were two triggers in fact and this made no sense to me. So I climbed down and tried to discharge the gun into the D.G. Nothing I did made the gun fire, and it was only afterwards that I learned I hadn't broken the barrel enough to cock the gun.
On to the next plan. I searched the shop for inspiration. Giant suction-cup grabbers? No, too weak. Little metal claws to retrieve fallen screws? No, too tiny. Then I saw the shop vac. OH YEAH! I would suck that rat out.
I got my equipment ready, and convinced my son that he wanted to be my accomplice. Before beginning I went through various hand motions with him so we could communicate while the shop vac blasted out all other sounds. This hand motion meant turn it on. That meant turn it off. This motion meant to run from the room because I've dropped the rat and it's loose.
The plan was I would stand on the washer, lower the tube down where the rat was, suck its bottom with the vacuum where it would stick. Then I would pull up the tube and shake the rat loose into a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket. Lee would secure a lid. I was pretty sure this wasn't going to work, but I had to give it a try.
You guessed it. It didn't work. As soon as the rat felt the shop vac nudge its behind, it disappeared down a little hole in the laundry hut floor. Rats! Why didn't I cover that hole before starting? Oh well, I put away the equipment and chucked a brick of rat poison under the laundry hut.
That was that. We went to Wednesday night church.
While we were away, Philip got home from work and unknowingly stepped over the rat as it was perched on the steps leading up to our side door. Wondering what was that strange object that he'd just avoided, he turned on his cell phone's flashlight and saw the truth.
The same sense of duty that had struck me, now struck him. He knew he had to do something. So through much darting about and prodding, he managed to chase the rat into the Home Depot bucket. What else was there to do but throw it away in our alley trashcan.
When I came home, I lauded him greatly and then asked him for lessons on how to shoot his pellet rifle.
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