Rats!!!!!

We thought we had mice in our garage.  I WISH we had mice in our garage.  The creature I chased out of our garage was a rat!  A huge rat!  In fact, it was so huge it could have passed for one of those little purse dogs -- easy.  Or maybe a large purse dog?  There will be no pictures in this post, I promise.  No one needs to see rats or rat traps or anything else related to rats.

You might be wondering why I was chasing the rat in the first place.  It's a good story.  It actually makes me laugh thinking about it, and humor is probably the only way to deal with rats in your garage.  And the rats pretty much laughed at the mouse traps I set out.  They ate the peanut butter, and looked like they had a party in the garage.  This might have gone on for a while, me being oblivious to the size and smarts of the rodents we are dealing with.  But on the second night of trapping the garage, I caught one!  And when I turned over the trap and saw that I had caught one, well, half of one, I screamed.  Because only the head was left in the trap.  The body apparently became dinner for it's "friends".  I shiver just thinking about this, and I actually don't have a fear of rodents.

My poor husband, on the other hand, is not faring so well.  He is terrified of rodents.  The deal we have for pests is that I handle rodents and he handles the spiders.  This has worked out well for me over the years because in all of the 15 years we have lived here, we've never had rodents in our house, or even the garage.  A couple of little mice near the shop is about it.  But the spiders are always about, and with the recent influx of Giant House Spiders, I don't mind the occasional mouse.

So yesterday when I heard Brian calling for me (no, bellowing would be a better word), I knew he'd seen a rodent.  I ran to the garage to find him in the corner telling me that we had a rat in the engine of our newly repaired van.  He'd opened the hood to check on it and the terrifying creature was there.  Right on top of the engine!

We made a plan.  We didn't want him in the garage, so I took off the brake and rolled the van out to the driveway.  Brian stayed a safe distance away.  Then we closed the garage doors.  And after much discussion of how we'd kill the rat, we settled on him using a B-B gun in the hope of shooting it.  (Trust me, this is better than his first idea of using a shotgun!).  I would use a shovel in the hope of hitting it over the head.  We both had our implements of death in hand and were ready.  I started the car.  The rat ran out with Brian shouting to me that the monster was headed for the woods.  I grabbed my shovel and was in hot pursuit.  I brought down my shovel twice and nearly had him.  That rat was fast!  And smart!  He dove into the wood pile before I could squash him and then proceeded to disappear.  Strange, but I felt sharp pain on my leg.

Brian, armed with his BB gun and at a safe distance actually tried to shoot the rat!  He shot me instead.  He SHOT me!  I turned on him incredulously!  What on earth was he thinking?  He had no idea he had shot me; he was aiming for the rat.  Clearly, my rational, calm husband was in another state of sanity at the moment.  The rats had gotten to his psyche.  And clearly, a man gripped with rodent fear should not be allowed weapons of any kind.

I actually laugh hard when I get the whole visual of us in my head.  Brian standing safely away from the action armed with his BB gun, deciding to take a shot while I, armed with my shovel, am in hot pursuit of the giant norwegian rat.  This is something straight out of Modern Family.  Totally a Phil and Claire moment.

And now this rat is toying with us.  We don't know if there are any more, but all of our sealing efforts in the garage are apparently working, because no one has gotten in.  All of the traps are not only empty, but completely undisturbed.  And this troubles me.  Because I know they are out there.  And they know we are after them.  I think they are just waiting until we have relaxed our efforts before trying a new onslaught.  So, they have won in some respects because I don't just open our garage door anymore.  I creak it open, check for rodents, and then tentatively walk out to our car.  The trap setting has gotten to me too.  Every time I accidentally set one off (and this happens a lot more than you would think), I jump and scream.  So the trap snapping, my fear that something is going to run out at me, have combined to make me somewhat paranoid.  I still don't have the deep fear that Brian has, but I am a woman on a mission now.  Bring it on rats!!