If you’ve been following this blog – or just happened to stumble upon it – (and I sincerely thank you both!) – you may have been following our winter rodent battles in the house. [You can read about it here if you want.] This week has only had 1 highlight, and that would be the dead rat caught by Tubbs. While I know that, according to my exterminator service, “it will take time,” and nobody mentioned the “it will get worse before it gets better” part. We’ve done everything they suggested – cut back trees and shrubs, replaced old weather stripping and door sweeps, and keep everything cleaned. I know in my head that it’s a waiting game, the rodents that are inside now can’t get out and eventually will get hungry enough to go for the traps and the poison. However, I know in my stomach that I can’t take much more. This week they got into the pantry – big time. They chewed through bags of rice, and boxes of crackers, even chewed the lid off of the plastic cat food container. Yes, f****** plastic.

We spent all of yesterday up-armoring the kitchen and the bathroom. We covered every hole, no matter how small, with wire mesh (they had already gotten through the steel wool used to plug them) and transferred every food item that was not canned of glass into giant plastic containers. We are slowly but surely trapping them inside the walls, I think. Dear Hubby kept trying to make light of the situation and actually told me that he thought the inside of our walls reminded cute rodent movies like The Rescuers or The Secret of Nimh. I found this slightly less amusing as daily I have visions of the last scene in Ben where 5000 rats pour down the tunnel to a Michael Jackson theme song. Quite frankly, if I were to apply human qualities to the situation, I envision a tiny Jim Jones rat-headmaster wearing amber sunglasses and speaking into a microphone while he passes out Kool Aid poisoned vittles to the rest of the families, while the mommy mice cry. Clearly, I spend too much thinking time on this.

Lately, I feel as if my life has turned into some wacky, make-you -feel-normal-about-your-own-neuroses, reality show. I wish instead that I could tell you that my life is like the Amazing Race, or the Biggest Loser, but sadly I’m relegated to an after-10 p.m. A&E show.

Obsessed. I don’t know if this show is still running, but I think I would qualify this week. Every waking minute in the house is consumed with finding rodent evidence – so I can figure out where they are going next, or what they have gotten into. And the daily cleaning ritual of the pantry probably qualifies me for mild OCD anyway. My hands are getting a little raw from Fantastick and Clorox, and my new preoccupation with stackable Tupperware is second to none.

Hoarders. I could actually be the exact opposite of Hoarders this week, as I have regarded nothing as sacred and tossed just about everything I can get my hands on in the kitchen. Food, clutter, you name it. But what its what I found that qualifies me for this show: 2 places that were filled with dropping and fur. Before you judge my apparent cleaning abilities, ask yourself when the last time you cleaned the cabinet above the light on your stove, and the bottom of your guest bathroom closet? Probably not that often? Yeah, me neither until this week.

Intervention. Ok, this one I don’t qualify for yet, but if I can’t get control on this situation soon I may find myself with a Meth problem, chain-smoking in the dark with a BB-gun at 3 a.m. to stalk my rodent friends. It most likely won’t come to this, but I have to admit that between cleaning up rodent feces, and dealing with a potty-training toddle who still thinks it’s ok to poop in his Spiderman underpants, I wouldn’t have turned down a Vicodin if offered.

I’m holding out hope that the exterminators are right and once we get this rodent family out, our problems will be solved. Here’s hoping.