This one is not in here!
The rat and the scream
I was sitting on the floor leaning back against the armchair watching the TV. It was late at night. Liz was lying on the settee fast asleep.
I thought I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye. Under the sideboard there seemed to be a tail sticking out. It was hairy. I thought it looked like a big gerbil’s tail.
I rose up and went across to get a better look. I shifted the sideboard and this huge rat ran out and bounded across the room straight under the settee that Liz was asleep on. It was ginormous – nearly as big as a cat.
It presented me with a dilemma. In order to move the settee and get at the rat I had to move Liz.
I woke her up and gently suggested that she might like to go up to bed. Even in her drowsy state she sensed something was not quite right. The more of an innocent act I put on the more suspicious she became. Finally I told her about rat.
She came fully awake, jumped up on the settee and screamed.
That was not helping matters. I told her to be quiet. Liz refused to get down so I could move the settee.
I went and got the cat who seemed remarkably disinterested.
I retrieved a broom from the kitchen and proceeded to poke and fish around under the settee with the handle. I was a little apprehensive having seen the size of the rodent. I was not quite sure how it had fitted under the settee in the first place.
After a bit of swishing with the broom handle I managed to scare it out and it lolloped out and straight out into the kitchen. Liz shrieked in horror at the size of the beast. I’ve no idea what the neighbours thought? They probably thought there was a murder in progress. The scream was very plaintive. But then it was the biggest rat I had ever seen.
The cat watched with keen interest but showed no inclination to go too much closer. She’d figured that this one was beyond her range.
I followed the rodent out into the kitchen with the broom handle poised to give it a whack. It was too fast for me. The cat followed me and seemed interested in how I was going to deal with this. She sat to watch.
The rat had belted under the washing machine.
I poked and prodded, wondering when if Liz was ever going to come down from that settee. The rat ran out and made a bolt for the cat-flap, straight through and out in one bound.
The cat looked at me and cautiously followed. I could see that she was merely making a token gesture. She followed through the cat-flap with no real conviction. It was purely for show.
It certainly explained how the animal had got into the house. He seemed to know exactly where he was going. It looked to me as if he was a regular.
I bolted the cat-flap which must have given the cat a headache when she tried to get back in and provoked some feline confusion. But there was no way I was going to allow that monster back in.
The next day I rang the Council. A gentleman came round with some nice blue rat poison. He seemed very blasé about it all. He thought that it had probably come from the sewers from a few streets over where they were demolishing some houses. I told him that it had obviously been interbred with a mammoth. He laughed. He thought the rat-poison would sort the problem out.
I suggested that he might like to reassure Liz. I had visions of her spending the rest of her life standing on that settee.
Good Afternoon Opher. Thats a story that made me go cold. Long time ago when the Children were small they said there was a big cat in our garden when my late Husband went out there to see he called me to phone the Council when I asked why he came in to tell me it was not a big cat but a rather large rat (probably yours) when the Council man came to put the necessary down he said did our neighbours grow vegetables yes indeed they did most of their garden was a vegetable patch, that is why we had the rat, it happened again the following year and then no more. Still makes me go cold.
Afternoon Anna – I like rats but that one was scary. He was big!
What we have now are “Super Rats”. I hear they are even in the Palaces of Westminster, only there they are called MPs.
Good one! You made me chuckle. I wouldn’t besmirch rats by comparing them with MPs though.
It is usually the other way round. Rats have more dignity.
You can trust them more and they smell nicer. They’ve come out of the sewer they aren’t still in it. Rats have integrity.
Trouble is I don’t like them or mice, they look cute but scare me.
A lot of people feel like that. I don’t know why. Mice are smelly but rats are not. I used to breed mice in my shed and sell them to the pet shop. I had two thousand once – all different colours. My pet rat Lipher was gorgeous. You would have loved her.
I might have loved her eyes, not too sure about the tail!
I could have painted it green and red!!
Still not sure that would have helped. How did your Wife feel about you, the mice all the babies and the shed!
I didn’t have the mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, crow or gerbils when I started going out with her. She liked Lipher though and the boa constrictor!
She is very understanding, I am not going to ask about the latter.
Sometimes she is!
Liz is all the time I expect, we women put up with a lot .
She has to put up with me. That’s a full-time job.
I bet.
You don’t have to agree with her!
I do, at least she could see what you were up to, my Husband kept things too his were SECRETS!!!!
I don’t have secrets! I think Liz sometimes thinks I shouldn’t be so open.
You must be open maybe I am far too open, I have been told that recently. I hate secrets, lived with people who never knew what the truth was. My husband died with his secrets, two I figured out, well one I got told by someone who slipped up -hate secrets, tell the truth the truth sometimes hurts but it’s better than secrets and lies. Honest that is what we all should be
I agree.
Did you just say that to shut me up
I don’t think that’s possible.
I have an answer but better keep quiet
I think that answer might find its way out! I bet it’s rude!
Done tea (fresh crab, tomatoes, soda break (Liz’s)), washed up, lit fire, changed and have an hour. Liz is cooking more soda bread for when the family arrive!
I love soda bread, I should make it but I buy it, I wish I had you around the house. Are you off now until after Christmas?
I’m always off.
Morning Opher, not too sure what way to take that
Morning Anna – just off to do my exercise, get changed and off to the bank!
Morning, good luck. I meant to ask you does Liz use white or brown flour for her Soda Bread.
Exercised, banked and shopped. The answer is brown.
Real Soda Bread, I buy Rankin soda bread the wheaten one it is nice but not like my Nana used to make, still can taste it in my mind. You have been busy today.
Soda bread is great but I eat too much of it!
It is hard to resist. The smell of bread being baked, my Nana and her brown soda bread and a bowl of freshly churned butter, sweet memories those I remember simple things but happy thoughts.
I think it all tasted better back then – more natural – less preservatives.
Food on the whole was much tastier, more natural.
And that’s what my parents used to say too! I think we’re fast rearing and purifying all of the taste out of it.