Palpitations
I was absolutely shattered last night. I slumped on the sofa and started writing a text message to one of the other volunteers. An hour later I received one from her… I was almost asleep with the phone in my hand and the message still half written.
I made a sandwhich (peanut butter and bananna on brown) and went to bed.
And slept.
Woke up around 2am, when the sicardas and frogs and gekos are quiet, to the sound of footsteps coming from above me…
Footsteps and a tail, I’d say. The ceiling is made of something like thick cardboard. My unwelcome guest walked around above me a bit while I lay still and listened to my heart knockin’ out a rythm like it wanted to get out of my chest and go tackle the rat in ventricle-to-paw combat.
Why do we react so violently to rats?
Maybe its not rats, after all I’ve sat and petted PhreakiPoi’s pet rats, maybe its the invasion of space or the connotations of disease.
When the noises stopped, I pushed my CD walkman, book, and a packet of tissues out of the mosquito net and onto the floor and rolled over onto my front. For a while I could hear every dog in Ukambani from here to Thika, every matatu, every branch moving in the wind. But before long I was asleep again.
lydia Says:
I think the thing with rats is probably to do with disease - pet rats look like, well, pets - their fur is healthy etc. whereas uninvited rats look manky and aggressive and you can imagine them running over rubbish, gnawing decaying food and urinating everywhere. And there’s lots of associations with "wild" rats being deeply unpleasant in literature which must resonate on the subconscious - the first that comes to my mind is Beatrix Potter (slightly childish but there you go) with the dirty old man rat who sat on a pile of rags and took snuff while Tom Kitten was made into a pudding. I currently have a daddylonglegs resident in my bedroom and that’s disconcerting enough for me!
June 11th, 2004 at 4:19 pmTamara Says:
Hi Mark.
I agree that it is probably the disease thing more than anything else, who knows where they have been foraging before visiting your abode! There is a plague of sorts happening around Melbourne’s bayside areas at the moment so I too am fighting rats. I was heading off to bed late last week when a very large rat and I very nearly ran into one another (it was happily running around the livingroom). It’s not that I am scared of rodents (I too had one as a pet) but more the fact that I didn’t expect to see it as I rounded the corner. Get the feeling it was probably more scared to see me than I was of it but I still jumped! Needless to say it (and/or other family members) has begun munching on things in the cupboards and crapping all over the place, so it is time to get nasty. Have already tried traps but they are smart enough to eat the cheese without setting it off so could be time for some poison. This may seem cruel but….
Other than your uninvited nocturnal visitors and a sore knee, hope all is well with you and I look forward to reading of your latest adventures.
June 15th, 2004 at 9:53 amMark Says:
Hey Tamara,
Long time no cuddle! Jury’s out on whether traps or poison are more cruel. But I think its necessary to keep them out of the home by whatever means.Glad to see I have readers all round the world. Drop me an email one day so I get your address again, think Ive mislaid it.
June 15th, 2004 at 10:44 amThaths Says:
I hated the buggers. Towards the final two months the rodents in that house got to epidermic propotions - there were three living in the oven (between the oven compartment and the stove top) and one in the bedroom (behind the cupboard). Much as I hated taking a life, I had to poison the beasts and call Issac to help me with the disposal. I detest rodents after a nightmarish experience as a child.
The buggers start coming into the house either when the grass is being "slashed" around the house or when the surrouding fields are being harvested.
Thaths
June 21st, 2004 at 10:57 am