“I’m just going to toss this down; is that OK?” my husband called out from the attic. He was holding a very Large. Dead. Rat.
It was the morning of Valentine’s Day, he had the day off work, and I had asked him to plan some kind of surprise date for us to remember later. It was all going to be so romantic and lovely.
He DID plan something (a wonderful surprise involving a hunt around the city for the best donuts, but I didn’t know the details of that yet)– but then we had to postpone it because we were instructed to stay at home from 7:30 AM until 4:30 PM that day to wait for the city code inspector to come approve our new water heater. That pretty much eats up the window for getting donuts. Apparently this is how the city works: you get a new water heater, they schedule a day to inspect it, and then they give you a 9 HOUR window in which they could show up, without any warning when they’re on their way.
We had no idea when to expect the inspector, but we decided to set an alarm for 7:30 AM so we could get out of our pajamas before someone might show up.
Actually we woke up closer to 7 (we’re not used to sleeping past 5) and we were both really hungry. I was lying in bed enjoying all the glorious possibilities of breakfast foods I could cook, because we had the time! Stuffed french toast? Dutch Baby? Waffles with ice cream? Then Erik started making comments about how his stomach was growling. That sort of pushed me over the edge toward hangry, so I got up, skipped my time with Jesus (there’s a recipe for grumpy right there!) and headed to the kitchen to scramble some eggs.
We had no sooner sat down to fill our rumbly tummies with an unromantic scrambled egg breakfast than a “CITY CODE” car pulled up out front. It was 7:22. A very awake-looking man bounded up to our front door and rang the bell.
“I’m so glad I could see in the window that y’all were awake!” he said, much too fast for 7:22 AM. “I’ve just been killing some time in the donut shop waiting until I could start making my rounds!”
We led him to the water heater. Within about 90 seconds he had looked at it, made some cheerful comments about drainage and home carbon monoxide detectors (obviously a favorite topic of conversation), shown us where we needed to close a hole above the water heater into our attic (for fire safety, also a favorite topic, leading into a tangent about fire-retardant doors), and left.
Erik pulled down the trapdoor ladder leading to our attic and went up there to get a better look at the hole from above, so we could figure out the best way to patch it up.
He disappeared from view and I waited at the bottom of the ladder. Then suddenly he let out an “ohhh!”
After a pause he explained, “looks like one of our mousetraps has caught something!”
Then he proceeded to toss the loaded trap down through the trapdoor. Friends, I know everything is bigger in Texas, but I’m not from these parts, so in my book there is a significant difference between a mousetrap and a rat trap (and yes, I have quite a bit of unfortunate experience with both). This was a rat trap, and the stiffened cadaver caught within it was most definitely a rat. And not a small one.
I shuddered as the rat hit the floor tail first. The tail, decomposed to a crisp, snapped off and flew across the room (fortunately not in my direction). The rest of the rat and trap clattered to a stop and feathery tufts of dried fur scattered around.
Just as I went off to find a glove and a trash bag, Erik tossed down a second specimen (remnants of dried rodent encrusted to another rat trap). It thunked onto the ground near the first. This one died in the Stone Age and probably didn’t have enough organic material left on it to DNA test or even carbon date it, but it looked more like it was a mouse once.
I carefully dropped the traps into a small grocery bag, but the dead rodents didn’t fold into the bag like I expected; they stayed rigid and poked the plastic like wooden spoons. The bag was barely big enough to tie closed. Nasty.
I went outside to toss the bag into our garbage can and noticed along the way that my car windshield was heavily frosted– again! The day before, I had almost been late to a dentist appointment (I know, this week just couldn’t get any more romantic) because I had to scrape off the windshield before I could drive.
Oh, and there was one complication: we don’t own an ice scraper. I had to go back inside and get my nylon pancake turner from the kitchen so I could scrape with that. (I even tried to buy one last winter and couldn’t find one here. It’s Texas. There’s a reason I don’t own an ice scraper. And I don’t want to hear any more about global warming this year.)
If it gets any colder, all the neighborhood possums are going to try to move into our attic too. Do they make possum traps? Maybe I can sell ice scrapers made out of rigidified dead possum tails.
Anyway, then I had to make a trip to Lowe’s to buy supplies to fix that hole (I was extra motivated by the thought of rodents climbing down through there).
…So that’s how Valentine’s Day was lost.
But the next morning, Erik took me on a surprise hunt for the city’s best donut. We drove around for hours gorging ourselves on sugar and the holiday was totally redeemed. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone. Here’s to passing code inspections and cleaning out all those dead rodents from our lives!