The first mistake was giving him a name. Once you name the darn thing, you evoke empathy. You have a tougher time playing whack-a-mole with the kitchen broom. For the record, I was opposed to naming it from the very beginning.
"But he's such a cute little rat," Matt argued the first night we spotted IT running across the back fence.
"Wild rats are not cute," I said, right after I stopped screaming.
"His name is German," Matt said.
German? Yes, German. No, not the nationality, Matt explains. German like an eclectic, elderly gentleman who goes about smoking a pipe and reading Sartre in coffee shops. You know, a very distinguished sort of rat. A kind of "Wind in the Willows" rat.
I wasn't buying it. A rat by any other name is still a stinkin' rat.
Maybe the real reason Matt named him German was to get me to quit screaming: A RAT A RAT A RAT OH MY GOSH A RAT!
So, the rat had a name. And the wretched beast was getting dangerously close to my kitchen. Matt assured me that German was a sweet, forlorn little rat. Perhaps lost. Perhaps sitting on a lone branch, staring up at the full moon and singing, "Somewheeeeerrrreeeee out theerrrreee, beneath the pale mooooonliiiight…."
I kindly reminded Matt that he had a hunting gun and why not haul that puppy out of storage and, you know, do a little huntin'?
Matt laughed me off. Oh, ha ha, Little Mother. That little rat isn't going to harm anybody.
Famous last words.
Because wouldn't you know it, the evening we have some friends over, little German decides to join us for dessert!
"Um, Liz, I just saw a rat run across the floor," my friend says to me as I'm finishing a lovely glass of red wine.
I started screaming. The children started screaming. I got up on the table. The children got up on the table. Did I mention our friends have six kids? Yeah, so NINE kids (because the twins were sleeping) and me are screaming our heads off. Some of us are piled up on the table, some of us are chasing German.
Absolute freaking chaos.
What I learned: 1. I'm scared of rats and 2. Screaming doesn't do any good. It only scares the rat and makes him run faster.
I'll remember that for next time.
Thank goodness for the men who cornered German, coaxed him into the boys' fishing net and deposited him near an abandoned field. Of course, German being the smart little rat that he was–promptly ran out into traffic. Not that we gave a rat's ass about that. HA.
And I call that a very happy ending. Don't you?
