The Yard Rat

Two days ago, as I watered my newly-planted flowers in the back yard, suddenly a large rat scuttled across the lawn and made its escape.  I was horrified, because each morning Toots dashes into the backyard sniffing the ground from one end to the other, obviously enthusiastic about something unusual that has been here in the night.  Okay, I can take opossums and raccoons, but I draw the line at rats.  It was off to the store to find some kind of trap.  Rats can give dogs toxoplasmosis and gosh knows what else.

There was poison, but I didn't want to kill some harmless visitor to our lawn, such as our squirrel.  There were the snapping-type traps, but only mouse size, and besides, it seems like a ghastly way to die.  I have a wire cage trap I've used to get rid of opossums and stray cats, but where would I let the danged rat out?  ]And what else might I catch instead of the rat?  Could I let the rat loose far enough away to keep it from returning?  Heaven forbid it should be reproducing somewhere in the yard, because not only might it come back, but then what to do with the offspring?

Finally I bought a sticky trap.  It consisted of a couple of strips of thick plastic (two traps, or a double dose of stickiness if you needed it) covered in something unbelievably adhesive; I accidentally got a finger into the stuff and thought I'd never get free again. 

But somehow this didn't seem like a particularly stress-free solution; the instructions showed a rat, dead, stuck in the stuff and being tossed into the trash in a very sanitary fashion.  Well, something wasn't right, because why was it dead?  And who in his right mind would pitch the cadaver into his trash can and hope for the best, smell-wise?

It took me two days to work up the nerve to set the traps out, baited with some almonds and a toasted tortilla.  The instructions were clear that no cheese or bacon could be used since greasy substances were banned.  Might they allow the rat to slip away, lubricated by cheese or bacon?  Who knows?

During the night, I had nightmares that the trap was loaded with radioactive material such as uranium and strontium 90.  That would sure explain the dead rat in the instruction drawing!

First thing this morning before allowing Toots outside, I checked the trap, which I had placed on a patio close to the laundry room.  The entire trap was gone.  I couldn't find it anywhere.  I pictured a 'possum making off with the trap stuck to its paws, strong enough to function in spite of this minor bother.

Finally I found the sticky thing, overturned and crammed into a drain grill next to our patio that keeps water from accumulating along a wall.  The danged beast, whatever it was, was not only strong but vindictive.  If it had rained we would have had water flooding the whole patio, thanks to the natural dam created by the trap.

I've declared a truce on the vermin front.  As long as whatever they are stay outside, so be it.  After last night, though, I don't think we will be visited again for a while.  That could not have been a pleasant time, finding yourself stuck to a big black plastic tray and having to drag it around the yard while trying to free your paws.  I wish I could have seen it.