I killed a rat the other day. I am not proud of it, but it was something that needed o be done. The poor fucker had wondered into my back porch during that last big storm. In my haste to get out of the deluge, I failed to shut the back door correctly and it had swung open so I could not blame the guy for seeking shelter. Hell, I am a bit surprised that I did not find a multitude of squirrels, ground hogs and rabbits in there too. These critters would have most likely left after the storm, however, the rat being a rat found the multitude of empties and assorted clutter as a perfect new home and decided it was going to stay.
This is my fault too. I have been back in The Mitten for two years now and I still have not returned a single ten cent deposit. That ten cents adds up so I cannot bring myself to simply throw them away but, then again, I also can't seem to bring myself to haul them back to the store and get my deposit back. So instead, they pile up in my back porch, along with other useless shit that tends to accumulate in back porches thus making it a perfect place for a big old river rat to hide out.
The thing was pretty fucking big too. Big enough to give my dog run for his money, which was one of the main reasons why I had to finally do the deed. My little turd for a dog might have tried to make friends with the thing and gotten bitten and I really do not need that to happen. Sure, my dog can get pretty vicious with his stuffed animals, but a living, squealing, biting and fighting creature with claws teeth is a whole other story. And, even if my little terrier did manage to kill the thing, I really do not want him to get that kind of blood lust. It is bad enough that he engorges himself on the stuffing of his toys, I can imagine what would happen if he got the taste of some rat guts.
That is all I need is for my dog to turn into some psycho bloody thirsty monster rat killer.
Walking him is hard enough as it is.
So, back to the rat...
For all you overly liberal goody goodies, in my defense, I did my best to encourage the rat to leave on its own, but the thing was simply intent on living off of the accumulated trash in my back porch. I even left a trail of organic bread crumbs leading out the door and then waited to see if I could chase back out into the wild. The little fucker was too clever for that simply slinking out to grab the crumbs before skirting back before I could leap out from behind the kitchen door to scare it away.Then, after spending the day thinking about other ways to trick this feral creature into leaving, I decided to get proactive and actually clean out my porch, hoping to maybe root the thing out that way. First, I took out my garbage can, which is were I first encountered the creature, snacking on some burrito leavings. Then, I started taking out all the returns and piling them outside. The pile got pretty high and looking at all the beer bottles made me thirsty, so I then cracked open a cold one and continued working letting the beer help numb me for what was about to come next.
As, I was removing the bottles, I could hear the scurrying about as the rat dug itself deeper and deeper into the accumulated jetsam.Finally, I caught site of a tail behind a milk crate full of old newspapers and I simply reacted, whacking the crate as hard as I could with a curtain rod. I didn't scream any sort of war cry from my primordial viking depths, I simply swung and soon enough that was that. I did drop a sledge hammer on the thing, just to make sure.
Afterward, after burying it in a makeshift grave out back, I felt a little sad that I had to resort to such violence. Perhaps, I could of found way to humanely remove the vermin. Perhaps, but what is done is done and there is no going back. I do think it is high time I cleaned my back porch and fix my door so that it shuts properly.
