Quote above 👆 by William Shakespeare, King Lear.
Beware: image of deceased rodent below 👇
When I discovered the lifeless body, I shrieked! Not because I was afraid, I just wasn’t expecting to see he’s tiny form camouflaged on the children’s beanbag. And yes I took a photo. I know that’s weird, but by now you have probably realised that I am Pleasantly Mad. I also needed evidence so the family would believe me.
Photo by Unpretending Spontaneous
The cat! Of course the cat had been hunting overnight playing with this creature until it stopped moving. He’d probably played with it for hours afterwards too. However it would have been my kind hearted dog that laid it to rest on the beanbag. I dearly hoped no child sat there this morning, unawares.
I picked it up by its tail, it was already as solid as a rock and yep a puncture mark. It was really darling, tiny little teeth, perfect little feet. Why do things so cute have to cause so much disaster? The mouse plague of 2021, wiped out crops and stores of grain in the west.
Image: Mice scurry around stored grain on a farm near, New South Wales, Australia. (AP)
We were lucky enough to eradicate them from the roof space last year before they got out of hand. It was about this time of year and the stench was worse than a dead kangaroo on the highway in the scorching summers heat.
I have tried to imagine mice and rats as hideous creatures in my head, somewhat like illustrations from Rahl Dahl. That way knowing they had to die didn’t seem so bad.
Illustration from Ronald Dahl, The Witches.
Still holding the dead creature by the tail I took it outside to the garbage bin. I apologised to it for my cat killing him and dropped it inside the bin, slamming the lid and hurrying to wash my hands throughly.
I didn’t think about him again while I was doing my Monday morning cleaning until I noticed a few droppings near a wall. “Oh darn,” I thought, “The cat found this one inside.”
The roof space had been noisy with scratches in the midnight hours a few weeks back and the necessary ingredients had been placed up there to remove the rodents. But now I realised the rats had moved from the attic. I continued my thinking, “One rat, that’s all and it’s dead.” I put it out of my mind again.
Today was a deep clean including base boards and walls, so I moved the lounge to clean behind it. A wicker cane chest where we keep our used magazines was behind the lounge and so were some more droppings. “Oh-oh.” And that distinct aroma of urine.
I slowly opened the chest. A nest! A darn nest was on the top magazine. Empty at least. The nest had been carefully constructed of the dropped lilly flower petals from an indoor pot plant, and shredded pieces of magazine. More droppings. But no babies thank goodness. The nest looked fairly new, maybe a couple of days. “Ahhh so that dead rat was a she!” Thank goodness the cat had got whoever lived here. Or so I thought.
Removing the top magazines carefully and the next several magazines which followed, I binned them and went to move the chest to clean the wall and that’s when I saw it!
I shrieked again.
This one was alive! And it ran underneath the lounge. That’s two! Two giant mice, which at the time I thought were rats. That means one of them were pregnant. Darn it. I bet it’s the pregnant one still alive. That’s it! This rat mouse had to go!
“Where’s that cat?” I wondered. There. Outside. Sleeping in the shade under the tree. I quickly walk outside and pick up my heavy cat. Kissa is his name - means cat in Finnish.
Photo by Unpretending Spontaneous
As I bring Kissa inside I explain there is a giant rat and he needs to get him. I put Kissa down near the lounge where the two dogs are sniffing eagerly. The cat looks at the lounge, sniffs the floor, looks at me and I’m almost sure he said, “You woke me for this? It’s nap time. I’ve done my work for today.” And he walked back to the front door and began to clean his whiskers.
Fine! But that rat mouse can’t stay under the lounge. I get my phone to capture the evidence and move the lounge a little, press record and...
“There! There it is! Ahhh Ahhh!” I yell as the mouse, as quick as a wink, scampers up my plant stand and pops her head over my maiden hair fern pot. Whiskers twitching away as she looked directly at me.
“Hello? Hello little one, the problem is... that you are massive!”
Her ears were moving as she listened to me talk and then she obviously decided I wasn’t a threat, daringly placed herself the rest of the way onto the pot and lay there comfortably so I could see her completely.
However I needed this creature to know it’s fate and I declared.
“My cat is going to kill you. Do you understand me? Alright? It’s going to kill you.
I was hoping the rat mouse was not looking at my dumb fat cat still cleaning itself by the front door. I could hear the bell on his collar tingling as he cleaned.
But far out! It was the cutest giant mouse thing. Big black eyes like shining coal and a pink twitching nose and tiny little ears. It was healthy and such a darling and... probably pregnant with a plague!!!
“But you’re so cute! If you weren’t so cute!”
My tone changed and I was almost in tears realising my dilemma that this beautiful creature had to die because of me, the supposedly superior human, didn’t want a billion of her in my home.
Photo by Unpretending Spontaneous
“I don’t like to kill things!” I cried. “Oooh, what can I do?” I asked the parts inside me who hopefully were smarter.
And Someone Else called out to my cat. “Kissa. Kissa! The rat is over here come and get it!” And started clicking our tongue calling in a high pitch tone “Kissa!”
Then because we were not thinking, we took our eyes off the rat mouse and moved the camera to Nala our dog.
“Nala’s here” I said. Nala wasn’t looking at the rat mouse. She stood calmly, her back to the mouse and facing Kissa, as if to protect the rat mouse in case the cat decided to intervene.
“Nala won’t kill...” I began and that’s when the mouse made her brave escape. She jumped onto the kitchen bench, leapt over the rubbish pile that was sitting there and flew off the bench like a trapeze artist landing lightly on the floor then dashed behind the fridge.
“Where’d it go? Ooh! Oooh! Ohhh. Ooooh! Ohhh-oooh-ohhhhh! It’s behind the fridge! Kissa! Come and get the mouse! The rat! It’s ginormous!
“Oh goodness gracious,” I was thinking. Now it’s going to have its babies behind the fridge or we’ll have to put bait behind the fridge and it was die there…
It’s been three days now and no one else in this household made a big deal about the rat mouse behind the fridge, and I was too much of a scaredy-cat to move the fridge. I just know it’s had babies behind there. Or maybe it’s moved to my bedroom? Or the kids bedroom? We’ll surely have a plague!
One thing I knew, that mouse wasn’t going to move back into the wicker cane chest! I emptied it out completely and every single magazine was flung into the recycling bin, the linen lining of the chest got washed throughly and it’s still opened and outside airing.
I’ll let you know, readers, when this house becomes consumed by the coming plague of mice all because I’m too scared of killing it and my cat won’t do his job.
Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind.
This has been Unpretending for Unpretending Spontaneous.
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