Not Afriggingain

Current mood: creeped out

It is the eve (morn) of the greatest holiday ever morphed into a glutonous celebration of stuff we still don't totally understand two-hundred some-odd years later. I've been cooking since 8 this morning. It began with the green beans and the corn puddin' and just ended with the first phase of the butternut squash. That's cooling right now, thanks.

In between, I've been doing a load or two of laundry, just to get a dent in it because it is NEVER, never-ever done. By this point of the morning, the laundry room/dog room/parakeet room/storage room/treadmill room/utility room is usually pretty quiet so I can understand why the little bastard thought he would get away with it.

Travis and my mother were asleep in front of the TV, the house was nearly quiet (except for Craig Furgeson's show on the TV), I had just finished putting the fourth load of darks (yup, today's fourth load of darks) in the dryer with a Bounce sheet and was putting a load of medium colored clothes in the washer as it filled. I was minding my own business. I had just put my newest mail order catalog on the deep freeze so I could work and then go sit down in the breakfast nook and scour the pages for stuff I don't need.

Something caught my eye and my God-awful mini-wail (so as not to wake the husband and the mom) sent us both scurrying. Me in a circle and him up the wall into a freshly chewed hole in the drywall. Little bastard.

His cousins had been here when we moved in, unbeknownst to us until we had been here for about six months. Travis had mistakenly seen one run under the utility carpet in the room one Saturday. His quest became to find them all. He pulled up the nasty, sick, gross, icky carpet from the floor along with the padding and found trails chewed into the padding, nests, carcasses of all ages and stages of decay (nope, couldn't smell 'em), a bunch of live little bastards and a crap-load of their poop. Can you say Hantavirus?

It took us the better part of a month to get rid of them. We baited, we trapped, we sealed walls and repaired mortar. We rigged a cage around the dryer vent. We were vigialant with dog food and birdseed. It was exhausting, but we did it! They were gone and didn't come back.

That was about two years ago.

Tonight brought news that we could expect a few flurries this weekend, which is a little crazy for this time of year and it when considering it was 76 degrees today. This, I suspect, was the reason for his debut tonight. He seemed to be pretty furry (do they get a winter coat?) and actually kind of looked fat too. He just barely fit through his little hole in the wall. But the worst part of his presence was that nasty naked tail. I take serious umbrage with any creature which sports a naked tail. I am just not good with naked tails. Fat, hairy, naked tailed little bastard.

I woke Travis and took him out there. He replied that he would, "... get on it in the morning." Heh? just to be a little technical and persnickity, it was morning. And this was a time of freakage for me. I hate naked tailed animals. Oh, I really hate them. I just looked at him, said nothing and then he turned and stumbled back to the couch to assume the position.

I grabbed the mini-broom and the mini-dustpan and cleaned the bird table, behind the bird table, I secured the bird food, I moved the dog kennels under the bird table and swept on hand and knee, I moved the big dog kennel and swept around and under it, I secured the dog food and then I searched desperately for something to help me prevent a repeat performance.
I went to our shelving unit out there and started looking for our poison, which, much to my chagrin was not the kind in little traps. It was the loose stuff to put in the little bait boxes (which we don't have). Then, I saw it. It was the last little bucket of spackle from our recent projects.

I went outside and found a putty knife thingy and grabbed my step ladder. Carefully balancing, I stood with my feet on either edge of the washing machine with my putty thingy in one hand and the little putty bucket in the other. I used the entire bucket and it may have taken me the better part of a half an hour, but by golly, I spackled that stupid hole shut.

Yes, it looks like crap, but it is closed.

And I hope that fat, hairy, naked tailed little bastard is cold all night. Oh, and hungry on Thanksgiving.