January 03, 2005

Rat Story - Part II

I've got a plan, I told her, but first I have to find the little sonofabitch. I'll call you in a second when I've found him.

Now I was serious about this mission. He struck first, and I admit he'd been shockingly effective. He'd practically disrobed me. Thank god I hadn't knocked over and broken a water glass; I'd have been incapacitated.

Anyhow, I thought to myself, I have a much larger brain than this creature. I actually thought that. And later I wrote the line - a rat will out work you, but he won't out think you. And I like that line a lot. I think it works on many levels. So I figured, somewhat illogically, that the first step in finding this fucker would be to imagine, if I were a rat, where I would be. So much for my superior intellect. But like many illogical things that I do, it worked. I spotted the little devil down in the corner, cowering behind a 10 pack of toilet tissue, in his ratty little way. OK I thought, my plan is working perfectly, so far.

I called Rose back into the room and told her, listen, the rat's right down there in the corner, behind the toilet paper. You take the mop, and when I count to three you're going to use it to move aside the toilet paper, and ratty's going to freak out, run into the middle of the room, and I'm going to hit him with the shovel and kill him dead.

OK, she said. I thought it was a remarkable show of faith, and I began to feel more confident in myself. This is not an uncommon pattern in our relationship.

Now! I cried. Out came the rat, down came the shovel, hard and loud. And then a second time just to be sure. And then a third time to be doubly sure. Then I scooped him up, loaded him lifeless, and believe it or not actually rather cute, into a plastic bag, and dropped the whole package into the outside trash. Done.

I've never been so glad to have a bathroom out in my studio as I was the rest of that week.