Last week, as I waxed poetic -- or maybe just waxed with lots of spit and elbow grease -- on the beauty of unspoiled nature, I was, at the same time, conducting mass executions in my basement.
Well, pardon my dark side.
If you’re a rat, apparently my house is a must-see stop on the Halleluiah Trail. I’m what you do on your summer vacation.
For a day or two, I can shut out the sound of their meet-and-greet and pot luck by playing Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto really, really loud. But it’s a non-stop party down there and their family reunion eventually spurs me to power up the Rat Zapper 2000.
These electric death chambers are a miracle, but only to a point. They kill rats on contact, without poison, without screams; only problem is, while the rat souls go directly to heaven, the too too solid flesh remains. And if a live rat gives you a shiver or two, that’s practically an afternoon with the Mona Lisa compared to a dead one.
After my first murder this season, I prevailed upon a friend, as he was over for breakfast anyway. You know, casual-like, “Do you want garlic in your Denver Omelet, and while I’m chopping, maybe you can...” And blah, blah, blah, the way any of us would ask someone in a crisp white shirt to venture down the black hole of Calcutta that is my basement and dispose of the dead.
Subsequent kills have been my responsibility, and I’ve risen to the occasion, generally with a nip or two of fortification; although, as a hardened veteran with eight sorties behind her belt, I can finally carry out corpses while stone cold sober --if I so choose.
This house is clean now. And by clean I don’t mean heroic measures have been taken, such as dusting behind the bureau. I mean clean in the sense that everyone inside has their shots and a standing invitation. And a name. And a good looking tail.
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