This Morning's Rat Race

Some people have the boring, methodical way to wake up in the morning--their alarm clock. Well for those of you boring souls out there, you just need to come live with me for awhile and you can get all kinds of interesting wake up calls. At six this morning, I was still in bed when I had a light tap on my bedroom door. One of my suite mates tiptoed in and profusely apologized for waking me up and then pleaded and begged me to come to their aid... They had a visitor that morning--a pack rat. He had climbed up the bottom bunk and crawled across one of the girls. She flung him and the covers onto the floor and then started yelling at her roommate that there was a rat in their bedroom. Her roommate thought it was a big joke until they looked in the closet and saw this big rat hiding in the corner behind the shoes. Being the expert rat hunters that we are (ya right! like we've had lots of practice!), we first called one of the assistant boy's deans to come over to help us (poor guy, he had just woken up and then he is called to help some girls catch a rat!). So Johnny came over with an ax of all things (we thought he was going to kill it in the bedroom, but he said it was only so he could corner it...). Then we barricaded all the doors and stuffed sleeping backs under the doors to prevent him from escaping to another part of the house. We set about three rat traps and one live trap and then armed with a trusty trash can, we were ready to shew him out of the closet. We finally coaxed him out and then he ran helter skelter all over the floor nearly crawling up the legs of my friends. They screamed and hollered and danced around. We finally threw the trash can over him but then weren't sure what to do. I unloaded a three ring binder and then carefully slid it under the trash can. The rat jumped when we slid it under causing one of the girls to jump too. We carefully lifted the trash can and then slid the binder just enough for the rat to fall into the live trap. As soon as we dropped him in, he raced up the sides and nearly out the top, but thankfully Johnny closed the trap door just in time. Good thing or we would have had another rat race around the room. To say the least, it was a crazy way to start the morning! (This is the second one we caught in the house in the past week. The first one was three times this big!)







Krystal and I trying to decide how we are going to lift the trash can without the rat escaping. (She's sitting on the trash can to make sure he can't get out!)








Our weapons of mass destruction






Just to show how big he is in comparison with the trap









Cute...maybe, annoying...definitely!



Oh, yes, some of my other wake up calls at night have been for the bears... Many a night since I have been here in Canada, I have been awoken by my dog barking at some unknown thing outside. Nearly every time I look outside to see what it is, it is either a bear or coyote looming in the plum trees right outside my window. A couple nights ago, my suite mates and I heard Shanuk barking so we looked outside to see a huge bear in the orchard. Grabbing the flashlight, we tromped outside to see if we could get a better look. I laughed when I thought of the childhood game I used to play where one person hides and you all go marching around yelling "no bears out tonight, Daddy shot them all last night" and then they jump out of the dark and tag you. Well, I definitely cannot sing that song here! There is a bear out nearly every night. But the bear was shy and took off before we could get close...oh, well, maybe next time. (Just kidding! I have no intention on getting close to those guys! And don't worry, we were being careful when we went out to see it!)