"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust and RAT destroy... " Matthew 6:19.
Sunday night (after surviving the flood and bug tasting over the weekend) I sat downstairs watching a movie before bed. Nathan was tucked in his bed with the door closed tightly (we would later be very thankful for this...). As I sat on the couch, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye and as I realized what it was, screamed at the top of my lungs... GARY... there's a MOUSE in the house!!!! (First time that I was thankful Nathan's door was closed).
They promptly came running, both the mouse and Gary, the mouse under the couch and Gary to the living room. Gary made a barricade type thing in hopes of blocking him in after we lifted the couch up, but with no success because the rat (not mouse as I found out as Gary got a better look at it) ran under the barricade (no idea how) to the other side of the living room (thank goodness we had moved all Nathan's toys to another room or I would have been doing some serious toy cleaning the next day).
With the rat trapped on the other side of the room, Gary set out to try and make a wall trapping the rat in the room so that we could catch it. But when we (okay Gary) tried to scare him out of his hiding place... he found the one hole in our wall and ran to the hallway, and then what happened next even we have a hard time believing. That rat went vertical probably 3 or 4 feet in the air as he jumped all the way up the stairs to the second floor (second time that I was grateful Nathan's door was closed). At this point Gary and I are both sitting downstairs looking at each other baffled, realizing that we have the Michael Jordan of rats in our house.
So we climb the stairs to find our intruder. We close all doors to every room in hopes of trapping him in. After strip searching every room, we head into Nathan's big boy room (the bedroom I have ready for Nathan when we move him to a twin bed). And there we find the culprit. He's decided the closet is a safe place from those crazy gringos. And he was right because we could not get him to come out from the boxes long enough to kill him. So Gary enters the closet with a broom stick in hopes of leaving with one less creature of God alive in this world. But about 30 minutes later, after much banging and movement Gary exited unsuccessful and really tired (it's about 2 in the morning at this point... and I'm still really thankful Nathan's door is closed!). We decide to call it quits for the night as the rat's not going anywhere anytime soon. (Bad decision... for many reasons).
The next morning we decide to bring in a larger creature of God :) Daisy, the Marcum's dog, to take care of the rodent. The rat stays in the closet all day where he apparently got a little bored and hungry as I would later find out. And we hear the amazing jumping continue throughout the day. Later that evening Josh and Daisy arrive to help out. Daisy is not impressed by the rat and really has no interest in killing it, so Josh and Gary go to work. At one point the rat crawls in between the comforter and sheets of Nathan's big boy bed and is slowed down for a second. Josh recognizes the golden opportunity and moves in for the kill. So now our house is one rodent less (and we're hoping rodent free... although Sonia found another Scorpion this morning in Nathan's room, so we'll have to see).
But yesterday morning as I began the cleaning process of the rat infested big boy room I went into the closet to take things out that needed to be cleaned / washed. Now mind you this closet is where I store extra linens. Linens that I painstakingly went and sought out last year at the after Christmas sales to bring with us in the container... only to find that that crazy rat has chewed holes in my sheets. EWWWW this mommy was so mad... and I can tell you that if that rat had not been dead already, he would have met his maker in that very moment. So we still have lots of cleaning ahead of us, and mending to do, but Gary reminded me of this verse in Matthew as I was mourning my precious linens.... that our treasure is stored up in heaven, not the big boy closet :)
Yuck! The other night I heard a RAT climbing inside our wall-Jeff works nights so I was all alone and started praying that the Lord would keep the RAT inside the wall and away from my bed. It freaked me out!! I feel for you!
ReplyDeleteSusan
A few months ago we had a bird in our chimney. My friends and I prayed at prayer group that Matthew would be a he-man and get it far far away from me!
ReplyDeleteI cannot even imagine; the whole thing reminds me of the bat incident my mom had when I was six. I'm so glad that the thing is gone, and I'm sorry about your sheets. Who ever knew all the adventures you would have in Cbba? Certainly not of this type were we dreaming.. love you!
ReplyDeleteI would have been freaking out! I did laugh at loud while reading this one a few times. Hope you have no more incidents like that one. If there are more little critters, I hope you don't have as much trouble catching them.
ReplyDeleteYou sure do seem to have lots of adventure!!
ReplyDeleteGross! I got chills when you said that the rat jumped up the stairs -- just imagining that freaks me out! I had a couple of mouses in my house in Togo -- one had made its home in my hide-away sofa (gross!) and the other fell down into my bathtub and couldn't get out. My night guard took care of both mouses for me. Ugh!! I'm SO glad you got rid of it. SO sorry about your sheets, though.
ReplyDeleteI just had a dejavu (sp?) moment. Three years ago while Sam and I were living in New Orleans, we saw our friend (mouse) around 8:30 at night and he finally went to meet his maker at 4:00 in the morning! Those little rodents are amazingly the fastest creature I've ever seen. I feel your pain, Laura!
ReplyDeleteShauna
They are hard little thing to catch! Matt and I spent 3 days trying to find one that came in durring a huge rain storm in LR. I managed to get it trapped between a wall and the microwave and had to wait till Matt got home to figure out how to get rid of it. It took for ever. Just one more exciting thing to tell Nathan about as he grows older!
ReplyDeleteWe had a HUGE one living in our attic for months. I could hear it scratching at night, every night. I thought often of the "Telltale Heart" by Poe. Anyway, we went out and bought a $35 rat trap, and what do you know? This rat, greedy as he was, ignored the trap, snuck down into Patrick's storage room, ate thru our bag of bird seed and right into the bag of poisonous fertilizer! Praise God the rodent decided to croak on our back patio instead of in the attic!
ReplyDeleteOh I can relate to these stories!!! Nothing like a bad rat to get your adrenaline running!!
ReplyDeleteNoticed the casual mention of the scorpion as well...yuck yuck yuck!!! Your starting your collection of missionary life stories!!!
Oh, no....I think I would have sat down on the floor and cried! But you're right; our treasure is laid up in heaven, and I have to remember that--especially with my little destructicons around!
ReplyDeleteGreat blog material, though!