yew see one rat out in da daytime, moh likely mean deres bout a hunnert or moh yew doan see, dey live in cawl-uh-nees.”
“I saw more than one rat,” I repeat, “I see rats all day long, walking all over this fence and in this yard, multiple rats.”
He turns to look at me and adjusts his hat. “Muss mean ya’ll gots a few hunnert or mebbe a t’ousand roun’ heah somewhere close, ma’am. Gonna be real mess on yore hans if dats da case.”
He drives off in his truck and leaves me standing there, staring at the cardboard tubes, as my mind repeats over and over… hunnerts… er… hundreds?
The tubes do not work, the rats are smart and just walk around them or over them. None of the rats are dumb enough to see a sticky rat catching tube and walk into it, gosh no. The tubes stay in place for about a week, until they get rained upon and soggy, or squashed flat by the rats walking over them, causing the tubes to stick together from the sticky stuff inside.
I call the exterminator guy again and ask for some better traps. He drives back out in his truck with bait traps, which he fills with peanut butter flavored rat poison. I am ordered to keep my two small dogs indoors, as dogs love the taste of this stuff. “Bes’ if yew keep yore boys in, too, boys’ll eat a lotta stuff dey shun’t,” he instructs me. So I keep mah dogs n’ boys in.
The smart rats get stupid, to my surprise, and eat the peanut butter poison. They start dying in stages, all over the lawn, one by one. They get disoriented, they stagger, they crawl along the fence supports only to start wobbling and then fall off into the growth below.
I don’t allow the boys out into the yard at all.
I find it hard to even out into the yard. No matter, the twins keep me informed about the ongoing ratocide by descriptive commentary when they are in observation mode, their faces plastered to the glass on the back patio door.
Kid One: Mom… Mom… you gotta see this… one just fell out of the tree.
Kid Two: Where? Where? Did you see it land?
Kid One: Right there. It landed all crooked. There’s its head, see it wiggle?
Mom: Alright, I don’t think you should be watching that. Get away from the door.
Kid One: Look! Mom, are you looking? I bet its only half poisoned, that’s why it’s still moving.
Kid Two: How can it be poisoned, you moron? It ate the bait, that’s why it’s acting like that. It’s just not dying fast enough, that’s all.
Kid One: If it only ate a of the bait, it might not die, jerk face. That’s half poisoned.
Kid Two: It’s totally poisoned. You’re just stupid and don’t understand. Mom, tell him he’s stupid and doesn’t understand.
Mom: Both of you get away from that door. Now.
Kid One: Five more minutes. I wanta see if it gets closer, first. Think it’ll puke or have gross stuff leak out of its body somewhere when it dies?
Kid Two: You’re so dumb. You’re just so dumb, the last ones didn’t do that.
Kid One: We weren’t close enough, Mr. Know It All, so how do know?
Kid Two: Mom, can we go out in the yard and get closer to this one? I think it’s almost dead.
Mom: Don’t you two go out in that yard! And get away from that door!
I dial the exterminator and tell him for God’s sake, to get over here and start picking up these dead rats, I have children here. “Ah’ll git to ya when Ah can,” he says. “Lotsa people got lotsa daid rats dis month, ma’am. Do yew know how minny yew gots?”
I tell him that there is no way in hell that I am going out there and get a body count. He finds this very funny and laughs. I hang up the phone and announce he is weird.
Finally the white truck pulls up into my driveway. I stand next to the garage and wait as he gets out. The boys are down to the truck in a flash, asking if they can watch him pick up the dead rats. “Why, shore,” he says, smiling at them.
Ipronounce, giving them the evil mother eye and ordering them away from the truck. They back up about three inches. “Oh, ma’am,” says the exterminator, “Dem rats ain’t gonna be in no shape ta do nuthin’ ta dose boys. Let em come wid me.”
“You just go get the rats,” I tell him, looking stern and crossing my arms over my chest. So he takes a cardboard box from the front seat and walks around to the back yard. The boys race back into the house so that they can watch what happens through the glass patio door. I go in to watch, too, but not quite as enthusiastically.
I mean, you watch some guy walk all over your yard, picking up dead rats by their tails… your arms fold around yourself and your chin sinks lower and lower on your chest. It’s just so grossly yucky, you can’t help it. The boys poke each other as he gets to the rat that was the subject of so much debate earlier this afternoon.
Kid One: Saw it move, bet it isn’t even gonna die. Shoulda been dead by now.
Kid Two: He picked it up by the tail, of course it moved, dummy. You’re dumber than you were this afternoon. Mom, isn’t he dumber than he was this afternoon?
Mom doesn’t get a chance to answer, apparently the man retrieved all the dead-for-now-rats and is walking out of the yard, back to his truck. The boys tear out of the house and stampede down the driveway to escort him back.
I run after them, shouting for them to get back in the house this stopping about 20 feet away from the man and his vermin filled box.
He’s opened a different door on the back of the truck bed thingie, and has taken out some large, white, paper-looking squares. He places them on the driveway, then reaches into the box, lifts a poisoned rat by its tail and then drops it on the paper square, in God’s name are you hriek, my hands flying up to my face.He looks at me. “Ahm stickin’ da rats to dis trappin’ paper, ma’am. Dey a lot like dose sticky tubes, on’y stronger. Cain’t hev em rollin’ roun in da truck when Ah drives, too hard ta git em out latuh. Dis keeps em in one place, till deys all da way daid.”
“All the way de… all the way Boys! Get back here this second!”
They stay right where they are, the little creeps, knowing full well that I am not about to go one step closer to what’s going on. The exterminator is smiling and talking to them as the rats go splat onto the sticky paper. Seven, for this round.
My hands have crept from my cheeks to my temples, as I stand there, pressing them in on my skull and thinking… He finishes and tosses the now empty box back through the window of the truck to land on the front seat. . He then picks up a sticky, rat encrusted paper by the corners and tips it into the opened door on the side of the truck bed thingie. I cover my ears, not wanting to hear it land. He picks up another paper, tips it in.
My boys are standing on each side of him, and after the last paper full o’ rats is tipped in, they crowd close to the opening and practically stick their whole head in there. I scrunch my eyes shut and just shriek at them.
“Will you for get from that Get your out of there!!!”
The man is scribbling
