Aquatic Rodents part deux

Read this at your own risk. I'm reluctantly posting the second part of the rat story 'cause I'm afraid someone will send the PETA folks after me. If you feel strongly about the demise of the rat, give me your phone number and I'll ring you the next time one shows up in my toilet at 3am. You can come and remove it for me.

The little devil was still swimming around at 9am, albeit not as vigorously as at 3am. My mother had suggested catching it in a pot and taking it outside. There is no way I'd ever be able to use the pot again so that method was out. My father suggested holding it down with the toilet plunger, but I definitely couldn't do that. I had thought about reaching in and grabbing it but was worried about a rat bite and consequent rat disease and decided that I'd had enought disease for the year. I fretted around the house with a rapidly filling bladder for as long as possible. When it finally imposibble to hold it any longer on went the big turd wrangler.












Down it goes to towards the bowl.

















But the bowl is empty.












The empty bowl is concerning. Ratso didn't escape, I think the little guy got tired of treading water. The unpleasant task of removing Ratso began. I thought it would be easy to reach in and remove the rodent. The only problem was that there was no longer a rat in my toilet. I fished around and reached as far down the poo hole as my wrist and the turd wranglers would allow, no rat. With visions of overflowing bowls and floating bloated rats dancing in my head I flushed. All the water went down. Four more flushes later it was clear that nothing was obstructing the sewer line.


A parting shot of the rat.

Nocturnal Aquatic Rodents

So last nights middle of the night pee turned into an adventure. It was 3 am and I awoke to plopping sounds of water. Odd water sounds are normal in our apartment, the shower drips all the time. Since I was awake it seemed like a good time for a pee. The weird water noises continued, peaking my curiosity so I turned on the light. There was a large rat in the toilet swimming for its life. I was at a loss, Josh is up in Reno for the Tour de Nez so it's just me and kitty and she just wanted to keep sleeping. So I called my parents, it might be 3am here but it's 6 am in Pittsburgh and I know they are awake. Neither of them had any great ideas of what to do with the rat. So I took some pictures, put a weight on the toilet lid and went back to sleep. This morning the rat is still swimming around and I can't take my morning constitutional. I think it's time to head to work.

slackers and clawless kitties

So our neighbors moved out and took the wireless internet with them. Damn them! So Josh and I sucked it up and are actually paying for internet now. Two days of dial up were enough for us to subscribe to AT&T/SBC's award winning network. Yeah! The modem was delivered to the wrong door, fortunately we live in a low crime area and two days later it was still sitting on the door step. So the service wasn't supposed to start until tomorrow but in a fit of restlessness I hooked up all the wires and cords and stuff (opting out of paying someone $200 to install it for me, there's really only two cords and a power source)----lo and behold internet!!! One last day of free internet has inspired me enough to share this story with everyone.

On a more interesting note, super Kitty has been out defendingher turf each night. A few nights ago after the sounds of a horrible catfight kitty comes trotting into the house. I saw something weird of her face and upon closer inspection determined that a piece of claw was lodged just below her eye. After tugging it out one drop of blood appeared and Kitty broke into thankful purring. She just doesn't remember that her claws are all gone.

Here's a picture of another clawless kitty who treed a bear. It's true, it said so right on National Geographic.