My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [4]
Now, because of all the comings and goings on the day of Operation Home Gym, I locked the cats in the guest bedroom and the dogs in the master. Eventually the dogs had to go outside, so I brought them out to do their business. Maisy’s just as happy to go on a rug, but you know, standards of cleanliness and stuff.
Afterward, Maisy and I were sitting on the couch and Loki was positioned by the ottoman at my feet. Fletch was on a conference call, and I needed to talk to him before the dogs and I went back upstairs. As I huffed, sighed, and generally made a nuisance out of myself while I waited, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head to get a better look, expecting to see one of the cats. Instead I saw something smaller skitter past. My initial reaction was Oh, look, cute! Fuzzy! Pear-shaped! until my brain fully engaged and. . . .
RAT!
IN MY HOUSE!
RAT IN MY HOUSE!
RATINMYHOUSE!!!!!
RATINMYHOUSE!!!!!!!
The rat, looking plump and robust from his two-month stay in the homeland next door, wandered around the corner from the kitchen with nary a care in the world. He’d strolled halfway to the living room before he caught my eye. Displaying zero sense of urgency, he made a U-turn and sauntered back into the kitchen while I sat paralyzed.
Did the pit bull—a carnivore, mind you—notice the rat five feet away?
No.
Did the German shepherd—another carnivore—notice the rat five feet away?
No.
Did any of the four cats upstairs, whose Spidey senses really should have been tingling so much that they were compelled to hurl themselves at the door, make any sort of noise?
No.
Anyway, when the rat and I locked eyes, I inhaled so quickly and deeply that I passed out for a moment.
When I came to, I very quietly informed Fletch there was a rat in the kitchen, in my house, in my house, IN MY HOUSE. Fletch went to inspect, and I mustered every bit of calm I could and dragged the dogs back upstairs before they noticed, as I didn’t want the afternoon to turn into the squirrel scene from Christmas Vacation, with the addition of bloody entrails.
Fletch went into the kitchen, found nothing, shrugged, and went back to his conference call, mouthing that it was probably a mouse and more than likely found its way back outside.
Yeah, like I was going to take that chance.
Upstairs, I Googled “Chicago Rat Extermination” and began to make calls. The first place didn’t believe me when I said my pit bull—part of the terrier family, meaning they instinctively go after things that are terrestrial—didn’t notice the rat, who was practically whipping up a batch of ratatouille in front of her face. I eventually convinced them I wasn’t (a) crazy or (b) living in complete squalor, but it didn’t matter because they couldn’t come until Thursday.
I left out the pit bull part when I called the second place. However, they kept blathering on about their patented no-kill collection process, which I’d normally be all about if the rats were, say, in my alley. Sure! Let them live! Take them to a nice farm in the country where they can run! But in my kitchen, the pristine place where pork chops are served? Not so much.
I talked to a guy at a third place and when I said, “Then he turned the corner and—” he interrupted me and said, “Hey, it could be a she.”
Really? REALLY? I mean, yay for equal rights and all, but is now the very best time to play the politically correct pronoun game? Then he said something about HER being pregnant, and I may have passed out again.
Fletch enjoys being contradictory, so he refused to believe that it was a rat. Because we were dealing with mice (in his opinion), he said we should simply handle the extermination ourselves. We got a ton of traps from Home Depot, set them everywhere, and installed those electronic rodent repellants.
We caught nothing, save for head colds from our repeated home-improvement-warehouse trips in the dead of winter.
A few days passed, and in a brilliant stroke of irony, Fletch was in the middle