Mouse Part Deaux

I have no idea how I ended up on my old blog last night, sifting through the year 2005 (seriously!) but I have to tell you...I am so grateful it's there. I had a real trip down mama-memory-lane (could it legitimately be called "mammary lane"?) and that year happened to encompass most of my pregnancy and Scotty's first few months. So good.

I have little to report on at the moment, though Christmas presents are on my mind, a certain insurance issue I need to get resolved is also on my mind, and I'm swamped at work right now. So, nothing good happening there.

In my search for (....what? I think I was looking for a particular picture?) I found this story and it completely relates to the Great Mouse Incident of 2009. I couldn't believe my luck that there was little to no swearing in this excerpt! Very uncommon, believe me.

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From October 11, 2005:

My mom told me this funny story the other day. They haven't any mice, but apparently they have "roof rats". I had never heard of such a thing (thank all stars!) but apparently they are quite large and scary. Upwards of a foot, sans tail. My brother told her he could hear them in the attic over his room, starting a couple of months ago. My mom knew they were rats, apparently, but didn't want to deal with my "sissy brother, god he's such a girl" (that's a direct quote) so she told him it was squirrels. Anyway, my dad had to go up there to deal with some electrical problems and came down later quite disturbed. Rats, he confirmed. Big 'uns. Over the last couple of weeks, the rats have been really stepping up their presence. My parents had to cut down a butterfly bush that had grown to epic proportions, and a positively jurassic vining plant near the family room window, because the rats were using them to jump from the house to the fields. My mom went into H0me Dep0t after clearing the yard, and was standing in line with a bunch of other folks looking for rat and/or mouse poison. Now, my mother is a real crack pot. Seriously. But you should have seen the look on my face when she told me how she had struck up a conversation with the other people looking to kill their pests:

Mom: You have rats?
Guy in Line: I have mice! They are out of control.
Mom: You should see the roof rats we have.
Guy in Line: "Roof rats"? Are they bigger than other rats?
Mom: You better believe it! Big enough to sit on my deck and shoot them.
Guy in Line: uhhhhh....
Mom: Yep. I killed four last night. Shot them dead.
Guy in Line: Oh, well, uh.... I don't have a gun.
Mom: Too bad!

I almost hurt myself laughing.

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This little story reminded me of another rodent related story (the hell??) that involves my brother. You should have my mom tell you this story sometime, actually, as she physically hurts herself whenever it comes up. She just can't stop laughing!

She and my dad sent my brother into the backyard with a bb gun to shoot at a particularly garrulous rat. I could not make this up. Anyway, they stood near the back door, watching him. And as he rounded about, in the middle of the yard, sweat beading on his upper lip, bb gun poised, they watched as one of the cats approached him from behind and rubbed up against his leg looking for love.

Even though my parents saw this coming from a mile away, they still nearly died laughing. Because, as you can imagine, my poor brother just about jumped out of his skin and, according to my mother, "screamed like a girl" at the top of his lungs.

I think they're both lucky he didn't plug them with a bb.