Late last night I was sitting on my couch, watching Private Practice when all of a sudden this VERY LOUD noise came from my kitchen. I thought something had crashed through my kitchen window or a kid had fallen down the stairs and crashed through the door. The point is, it was REALLY LOUD! So, I pick up my iron candle stick and head down the hallway not sure of what I was going to find. When I got to the door of the kitchen I stopped and tentatively peered around it, thinking I was going to be confronted by broken glass and an owl, or a broken child. There was nothing and it was silent. As I stand there and get a bit more brave, this unbelievable noise erupts from the floor. There is crashing and banging and more smashing. I jumped!
I have a cold air intake grate in my floor and through the grate is a tin floor that runs under the house. Well, in this space is a rat, with it's head snapped in my trap (I always keep a rat trap down there), but it is not dead. Now this is not a cute little field mouse, this is a HUGE - it's body is probably close to a foot long, then there's the tail - able to leap tall buildings kind of rat. It takes 23 minutes for it to die. After it's timely demise I couldn't bring myself to stick my hand down there and get it out, so I did what came like second nature... I covered the grate and rolled my kitchen cart on top of it. After all, what if it were to come back to life and pop the grate open and run rampant through the house?
This morning, I tried to deal with it. I looked at it, I thought about all my options, but I really couldn't do it. So, I called my friend Carol - she can do anything. If you guys think I'm brave, you should meet her! She is going to rescue me from my dead rat situation, before the party starts :)
Now, I thought the boys would be interested in seeing this sight, so I called them over to inspect. Of course, they wanted to get it out, but I couldn't let them do it either. Dylan asked my why it was still in there and I hadn't taken it out yet. I told him that I just wasn't brave enough to do it and I shared my theory about it possibly coming back to life as soon as I touched it. He looked at me in amazement and said, "Mom, I am gravely disappointed in you. It is a dead rat. You can finish killing rabbits and chop the head off a duck (those are stories for another blog post), but you can't pick up a dead rat? I think you should consider taking my next therapy appointment to work through this phobia." I think he was serious too.
Maybe I'll take a picture of it for tomorrow's blog...
The lesson of the day was really for the kids, who learned that their mom really can't do everything.
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