It was a normal sunday morning — I was in Michigan and Brooke was in Seattle :). Then I made a phone call, to Brooke — for she had called me three times on my cell phone and once at my parents house. This was my hint that my normal Sunday was going to turn into something other than normal.

“Hey Babe, you called?” I said as Brooke picked up the phone. “Uhh, Joel, we have a rat, it was behind the toilet and now it is somewhere in our house.” she calmly said.
“A rat you say? Are you sure?”
“Yes, it was like 5 pounds and had a huge tail.”

The conversation continued for a short while as we tried to figure out what to do. I hung up the phone and cursed a man named Murphy and his stupid law. I wasn’t scheduled to hop on a plane until the next day and here Brooke was, in Seattle with a rat in our 600 square foot apartment.

I arrived home the next day and saw traps set up all over the house, but none of them had been frequented by Mr. Simon Rat. I week went by and Simon made his nightly visits to our window sills, our bathtub, our kitchen floor, and our living room floor — apparently Simon thought that all of the above where his restroom.

This past friday an exterminator came — and did nothing except put out some rat poison and two additional traps. Simon continued to make frequent visits in our kitchen and didn’t seem to mind that there was poison. In fact, he somehow got some of the peanut butter that was on the poison and only managed to nibble on one small corner of the poison.

It has now been two days since Brooke and I have seen evidence of our friend Simon. We aren’t sure where he is. It is possible that he somehow got a large supply of food and decided to hibernate for a couple days. It is possible that he ate enough of the poison and is now in rat heaven. Or, it is even possible that he is just taking it easy, maybe watching a M*A*S*H marathon on TBS.

Oh Simon, where art thou? If thou is dead, please do not stink up our house. If thou is alive, please come eat this lovely poison or get caught in these wonderful traps. I’m sick of sharing my house with you. All you do is take, take, take — I can’t continue to be in relationship with you if you never give back.

peace
joel

p.s. I’ll update you all when there is resolution
p.p.s. You will not want to miss this