Rats

As Indiana Jones once said, "Rats. Why did it have to be rats?" OK, he was talking about snakes, but I am exercising my poetic license, just like George Bush.

One morning, I woke up to another bright and beautiful day here in warm, sunny Florida. (Note: when waxing poetic, you must always precede the word "Florida" with "warm" and "sunny." If you don't, you are fined and can potentially serve time working in the strawberry fields for farmers at less than minimum wage, with people whose names sound like Juan, Juanita, and Franklin Rothschild the Third. All right, I'm making up the first two names).

For some reason, my nose doesn't start working first thing in the morning. I have to get up, wander about a little bit, and go through my usual morning routine (picture Scarlett O'Hara sashaying about her mansion first thing in the morning). My dog is usually the first to crack open his eyes and see me, and he seems to accept me as I am, even before I brush my teeth. Of course, he has also been known to savor an occasional dead bird. That's why I think that neither of us noticed The Odor at first.

I did notice that the noises I'd been hearing in the attic for a couple days had finally stopped. I seemed to be housing the Brazilian Soccer Team for Rodents upstairs. I had been hoping that whatever it was would decide to seek its fortune elsewhere, and never went up there to see what was scurrying about.

But when I came home later in the day, I decided that Something Was Rotten. I took out the trash, cleaned my garbage disposal out, and opened the windows for a brief time. Here in warm, sunny Florida, the summer arrives with a vengence, so they didn't stay open for long. As soon as I began to swelter, I closed everything up again and turned on the air once more. Problem solved.

The next morning, the odor was strong enough to get my attention immediately. And that's when I realized that my Brazilian Soccer Team had been too quiet for too long.

I am somewhat ashamed to admit that there are times that I use my feminine wiles to my advantage. This time, I convinced My Other Half that I wouldn't dream of going up there in that horrid old attic while he could go up there and find the problem so much quicker, and better, than I could. So, with great reluctance, he went. He found nothing.

The smell persisted for 2 more days, until we couldn't enter the house without putting rags over our noses. So, he went up again. This time, he found the remnants of what he said was the biggest rat he'd ever seen in his life. He said this in between gagging, I should add. "Well," I said brightly, "maybe it's a capybara!" When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

He treated this with the disdain that it deserved, and said nothing while he continued trying to hold down his lunch.

We get a lot of citrus rats in our attics in warm, sunny Florida. They're adorable, dark brown rats with huge eyes. Adorable, that is, until they decide to die in your attic. Not having seen this particular rat, I don't know if he was a mutant like Arnold Schwarzenegger, or if he may have been of another species altogether. I wasn't curious enough to look.

I've had friends that tell me, in an all-knowing sort of way, that if you just put poison up there, the rats will eat it and wander outside to find water. They suggested leaving pans of water around outside (as if my neighbors don't think that I'm strange enough already). But, what would prevent them from wandering inside? I have plenty of water inside. I don't think I want to take that chance. Others have suggested traps. I can't see how I will be able to convince My Other Half to go up and check those traps on a regular basis. I was lucky enough to con him into doing it the first time.

I can always hope that no other rats find their way into my attic. But that may be as blindly optimistic as an orphaned boy at the Neverland Ranch.