The Invasion

I am literally freaking out right now. Hyperventilating, rapid heart beat, tears kind of freaking out. I'm losing my ever-lovin' mind! My cats know something is up. They've rallied around me to see what mom is up to.

I noticed the unusual scampering when I left this evening for the gym. Just three or four of them, but they were too close to the house. This was unacceptable. When I returned from the gym, I tiptoed up to the back door (where we normally enter our house) and saw slithers of tails, patches of grass moving and heard the squeaks of many . . .you guessed it - MICE! Not only were there mice, but there were RATS! I am in hell.

I paced the floor. What to do? What to do? As long as they don't actually come up on our back porch, perhaps I'll be fine. So, I take a look out the window and there sits a rat, comfortably perched right at my back door, planning his leap into my garbage can. In fact, if I had opened the door at that moment I would have launched him right into the tasty feast he was eyeing.

As I watch from my door window, I can see the white plastic garbage bag doing a dance - moving this way and that as a rather fat mouse (rat?) chews his way into oblivion. I decide some sort of action must be taken. I text messaged my husband, who is out of town for the weekend. I have not yet received a reply. So, I call him only to get his voice mail. I tell myself just to breathe. I run through a hardly existent list of people I could call. But, seeing as we just moved here, I don't know anyone's number.

Locating the church directory among a heap of papers, I call the Jr. High pastor. No answer. I dial the Senior Pastor. No answer. I'm hyperventilating. Even if I did reach them, what would I say? "Help - I've got rats and they're taking over"?

I finally decide to call my dad whom I can tell has been asleep for at least an hour. Rat poison, he suggests, in his stupor. Yes, but I can't get that until tomorrow! It's 10pm!! What will I do until then? Surely I can't sleep. Not when I know they may be digging a hole through my wall to eat my kitties!! (Yes, I know -cats are suppose to eat mice, but I'm afraid they may overtake my cats because there are so many of them and really - I don't want my cats eating some diseased rodent.)

I hang up with my dad and realize my only weapon is ice. Yes, ice. I fill a plastic cup with large ice cubes and crack the door, barely fitting my arm through the narrow opening. My aim is not too good, and only the last cube makes it into the garbage can. You are probably asking yourself, what was she intending to do with those ice cubes? Well. . . knock them all out of course!

I hear voices. I notice that there are people in the church parking lot only a few feet away. Someone leaning into a car window, chatting. They'll help me! I exit my front door - where I know there are no rodents, or at least I'm hoping - and walk out into the street and around the perimeter of our house, careful not to get too close to the rat infested area. I reach the parking lot, and it's dark. Everyone is gone.

There is nothing more for me to do but to blog. My strategy for tomorrow? I plan on removing the garbage can from the side of the house, but not before I chuck some more ice cubes in there to get rid of the greedy rodents who didn't get their fill during the night. Then, I'm buying a gun.