There's a rat in me kitchen what am I gonna do?
Last night while I was sleeping, I caught a rat.
Not a mouse. A rat.
And don't worry. I lean severely in the Buddhist direction, so I caught him/her alive and well. See, here in Thailand you can pick up a cruelty-free rat trap at any local market for about a buck. It's a screen-metal box, the size of a loaf of bread, with a lid at one of the ends, that can be set to slam shut when the rat has entered far enough into the trap. So you hang a little bait, position the trap, and in the morning you have a caged rat.
See, in my old house, we had a cat. Or rather, we had use of a cat, that was making use of us. The cat hung around, got fed, could stay out of the rain; and as this cat, Fang, had helped raise our two dogs from puppies, he had established a sanctuary of food and safety in a dog studded environment, without incurring (no pun intended) any obligation on his part. Yes, that old house was rat free. Any rat foolish enough to mosey around the our compost heap soon had its head or other body parts laid before us as booty for the Master, or, equally as often, the entire wolfed-down body would be up-chucked somewhere. Yum.
Fair enough. Nature solved our problems. And cleaning up occasional piles of slimy undigested rat chunks was a fair price. And half the time, Somjit (my wife), did it anyway.
Yet this world is always changing. And to even lowly, lovely Chiang Mai, comes the crush of money and fashion and stuff. We moved just before the Starbucks opened at the end of our soi (a soi is a little lane off a bigger street). Our peaceful area had become trendy. The Champs Elysees of Chiang Mai. Got more expensive too. Took us too long to cross the road. But I've digressed to far.
Last night I caught not just a rat but that rat.
See, when we moved, Fang didn't come with us. He was already getting on, and he just shifted off to another gig. We missed him and the way he used to let our youngest dog beat him up with a tolerance that I will never forget- to a point where a blurry flurry of cat-claws stopped the game.
So, that left us with two dogs, which quickly became three. But dogs, I now know for sure, are no threats to rats. And our new, quite old, house had hollow spaces in the walls and ceilings - rat-ways, built right in. We missed Fang right away.
And so for the first time I learned about these great Thai rat traps. I set one up, and the next morning I had the little bugger. He was pissing and shitting in fear, but totally unharmed, so I placed the cage-trap in the basket of my motor scooter and scooted about a kilometer and a half or so away to an open field, opened the cage and let the terrified little critter run. And run he did. God, they're fast. I had no idea. But I had given it a new lease on it's little life and I proudly puttered home on the motorbike pleased with the ease and humanity of the process to be greeted with a chorus "A kilometer and a half?! Are you crazy? That's not far enough. Have you seen how fast they run?" A monk even told me: "Your house is perfect for him. A kilometer and a half? He'll be back for dinner."
I was thrown into doubt. That little guy really had shocked me with his speed. I mean, they bound like antelope.
So soon after we had another rat. Same rat or not was hard to tell. But again I caught him/her, put the cage in the scooter basket and went about three long kilometers, across a canal and a highway to drop him/her off. Seemed like overkill to me.
I got yelled at again.
See living with rats is not just an abstract distaste. If you leave a few chips in the bottom of the bag, in the morning the bag is gone. To be found a few days later wedged behind the bookcase, plastic shreds and ratshit all around. You have to close off all food. We did.
It ate our soap. I kid you not. It gnawed on the edges of the bars, and carried some full-sized bars completely away. It dragged a bag of dried Thai chilli up into the rafters towards its lair, no doubt, somewhere in rat-highway, but alas for the rat, the bag broke, showering dried chili pepper all over our kitchen. Ate through aluminum foil bags of coffee too.
An now another rat was heard scurrying along the rat highways of our home.
I set up the cage/trap. But nothing happened.
Somjit's dad was visiting at the time and said that rats can smell the old trap. (Which meant that he was sure that I had not sent the old rat far enough away, and now it was back, smarter than ever. My bad again.) He cleaned the cage well, and set the trap. Nothing.
We waited a while. Covering food, hiding soap, and hoping hunger would drive the little jerk off.
Oh, by the way, do you know, rats are noisy? Not just their little scurrying, which is more like galomping, through the rafters, no, more than that, they chirp and call and cry and make all sorts of noise. Noise that our three dogs don't seem to take any notice of.
I set up the cage again. Nothing.
I moved it to a new place, outside our bedroom window, on a little ledge; it was a move out of character, and I got him.
This time I took no chances and went more than four kilometers away down twisty turny roads that none of you could fine your way back from. Across the canal. Across a highway. I returned home, feeling the hero, to be greeted by shaking heads.
By now you may have guessed it. This new rat seemed to know all my tricks. I set the trap with all my cunning. Nothing worked. But life wasn't so bad. We sort of resigned ourselves to live with ratness. We kept our food locked away - no bananas on the counters, no unopened bags of coffee, chili, or cookies - kept the soap in a tupperware jar. It begins to seem normal after a while. We might have been able to coexist. Just the taunt of rat galomping through the rafters, and of course the weird rat chirps and calls.
The rat diminished my manhood. No doubt.
I was ready to let it slide.
But he wanted more. He ate through the mobile phone recharger cable, which I had to jury rig with electrical tape to keep it all together. Then he did it again. Why? Just to piss us off? In the end all will be revealed. Next he started chewing new holes through the teakwood floor into our bedroom (How do you like that? An old, cheap house, with thick teakwood floors. Kinda bends the imagination.). And he taunted us with a half-chewed electric cable. The threat of fire loomed.
By now your realizing that I'm pretty much a slacker.
Judge me as you may. I believe I'm flexible with other species.
I set up the trap again last night. And I set it good.
Somjit rolled her lovely brown eyes.
I filled the cage with scraps of paper, cloaked in rubbish, and basically made it look like a trash heap. I scattered tissues and crumpled paper around. I lined the inside of the trap with paper - my students old math homework - so that the trap was not so clear amongst the mess. I did breathing exercises. I visualised rat-joy. I scattered little bread crumbs, little orange junkfood snacks bits. It was a mess.
The rat's urge for garbage sites was too much, and the door slammed shut leaving him/her in a pile on junkfood and math homework, and my manhood incrementally increased.
This Sunday morning I woke to such joy of the capture. I thumped my chest, and before the rest of this lazy house awoke, I took him five and a half kilometers away, leaving him at a carefully chosen spot, an area awash in cheap pondside restaurants and food scraps. Hell, I'd rather live there. I didn't see a single cat. Just a bunch of dogs. And we know how much a threat they are.
Only one regret.
Should've marked an 'x' on his/her nasty forehead. I thought about it and all, but it's not so easy to do as the toothy little hyperactive fellow is bounding nonstop in the cage through math homework, junkfood, and rat shit, warming up for a long run. And after all, it was Sunday morning.
Not a mouse. A rat.
And don't worry. I lean severely in the Buddhist direction, so I caught him/her alive and well. See, here in Thailand you can pick up a cruelty-free rat trap at any local market for about a buck. It's a screen-metal box, the size of a loaf of bread, with a lid at one of the ends, that can be set to slam shut when the rat has entered far enough into the trap. So you hang a little bait, position the trap, and in the morning you have a caged rat.See, in my old house, we had a cat. Or rather, we had use of a cat, that was making use of us. The cat hung around, got fed, could stay out of the rain; and as this cat, Fang, had helped raise our two dogs from puppies, he had established a sanctuary of food and safety in a dog studded environment, without incurring (no pun intended) any obligation on his part. Yes, that old house was rat free. Any rat foolish enough to mosey around the our compost heap soon had its head or other body parts laid before us as booty for the Master, or, equally as often, the entire wolfed-down body would be up-chucked somewhere. Yum.
Fair enough. Nature solved our problems. And cleaning up occasional piles of slimy undigested rat chunks was a fair price. And half the time, Somjit (my wife), did it anyway.
Yet this world is always changing. And to even lowly, lovely Chiang Mai, comes the crush of money and fashion and stuff. We moved just before the Starbucks opened at the end of our soi (a soi is a little lane off a bigger street). Our peaceful area had become trendy. The Champs Elysees of Chiang Mai. Got more expensive too. Took us too long to cross the road. But I've digressed to far.
Last night I caught not just a rat but that rat.
See, when we moved, Fang didn't come with us. He was already getting on, and he just shifted off to another gig. We missed him and the way he used to let our youngest dog beat him up with a tolerance that I will never forget- to a point where a blurry flurry of cat-claws stopped the game.
So, that left us with two dogs, which quickly became three. But dogs, I now know for sure, are no threats to rats. And our new, quite old, house had hollow spaces in the walls and ceilings - rat-ways, built right in. We missed Fang right away.
And so for the first time I learned about these great Thai rat traps. I set one up, and the next morning I had the little bugger. He was pissing and shitting in fear, but totally unharmed, so I placed the cage-trap in the basket of my motor scooter and scooted about a kilometer and a half or so away to an open field, opened the cage and let the terrified little critter run. And run he did. God, they're fast. I had no idea. But I had given it a new lease on it's little life and I proudly puttered home on the motorbike pleased with the ease and humanity of the process to be greeted with a chorus "A kilometer and a half?! Are you crazy? That's not far enough. Have you seen how fast they run?" A monk even told me: "Your house is perfect for him. A kilometer and a half? He'll be back for dinner."
I was thrown into doubt. That little guy really had shocked me with his speed. I mean, they bound like antelope.
So soon after we had another rat. Same rat or not was hard to tell. But again I caught him/her, put the cage in the scooter basket and went about three long kilometers, across a canal and a highway to drop him/her off. Seemed like overkill to me.
I got yelled at again.
See living with rats is not just an abstract distaste. If you leave a few chips in the bottom of the bag, in the morning the bag is gone. To be found a few days later wedged behind the bookcase, plastic shreds and ratshit all around. You have to close off all food. We did.
It ate our soap. I kid you not. It gnawed on the edges of the bars, and carried some full-sized bars completely away. It dragged a bag of dried Thai chilli up into the rafters towards its lair, no doubt, somewhere in rat-highway, but alas for the rat, the bag broke, showering dried chili pepper all over our kitchen. Ate through aluminum foil bags of coffee too.
An now another rat was heard scurrying along the rat highways of our home.
I set up the cage/trap. But nothing happened.
Somjit's dad was visiting at the time and said that rats can smell the old trap. (Which meant that he was sure that I had not sent the old rat far enough away, and now it was back, smarter than ever. My bad again.) He cleaned the cage well, and set the trap. Nothing.
We waited a while. Covering food, hiding soap, and hoping hunger would drive the little jerk off.
Oh, by the way, do you know, rats are noisy? Not just their little scurrying, which is more like galomping, through the rafters, no, more than that, they chirp and call and cry and make all sorts of noise. Noise that our three dogs don't seem to take any notice of.
I set up the cage again. Nothing.
I moved it to a new place, outside our bedroom window, on a little ledge; it was a move out of character, and I got him.
This time I took no chances and went more than four kilometers away down twisty turny roads that none of you could fine your way back from. Across the canal. Across a highway. I returned home, feeling the hero, to be greeted by shaking heads.
By now you may have guessed it. This new rat seemed to know all my tricks. I set the trap with all my cunning. Nothing worked. But life wasn't so bad. We sort of resigned ourselves to live with ratness. We kept our food locked away - no bananas on the counters, no unopened bags of coffee, chili, or cookies - kept the soap in a tupperware jar. It begins to seem normal after a while. We might have been able to coexist. Just the taunt of rat galomping through the rafters, and of course the weird rat chirps and calls.
The rat diminished my manhood. No doubt.
I was ready to let it slide.
But he wanted more. He ate through the mobile phone recharger cable, which I had to jury rig with electrical tape to keep it all together. Then he did it again. Why? Just to piss us off? In the end all will be revealed. Next he started chewing new holes through the teakwood floor into our bedroom (How do you like that? An old, cheap house, with thick teakwood floors. Kinda bends the imagination.). And he taunted us with a half-chewed electric cable. The threat of fire loomed.
By now your realizing that I'm pretty much a slacker.
Judge me as you may. I believe I'm flexible with other species.
I set up the trap again last night. And I set it good.
Somjit rolled her lovely brown eyes.
I filled the cage with scraps of paper, cloaked in rubbish, and basically made it look like a trash heap. I scattered tissues and crumpled paper around. I lined the inside of the trap with paper - my students old math homework - so that the trap was not so clear amongst the mess. I did breathing exercises. I visualised rat-joy. I scattered little bread crumbs, little orange junkfood snacks bits. It was a mess.
The rat's urge for garbage sites was too much, and the door slammed shut leaving him/her in a pile on junkfood and math homework, and my manhood incrementally increased.
This Sunday morning I woke to such joy of the capture. I thumped my chest, and before the rest of this lazy house awoke, I took him five and a half kilometers away, leaving him at a carefully chosen spot, an area awash in cheap pondside restaurants and food scraps. Hell, I'd rather live there. I didn't see a single cat. Just a bunch of dogs. And we know how much a threat they are.
Only one regret.
Should've marked an 'x' on his/her nasty forehead. I thought about it and all, but it's not so easy to do as the toothy little hyperactive fellow is bounding nonstop in the cage through math homework, junkfood, and rat shit, warming up for a long run. And after all, it was Sunday morning.
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