08/29/2004 22:52 -0500 GMT

Rats!

Tomorrow the abdomen, next decade the world!

I don't know what that means. I do know that I got a lot of domestic shit done today, and that helps clear the mind. I also studied the thoracic cavity and its contents a bit more, and have a pretty clear understanding of where the different lobar segments are in both lungs, thanks to Dr. Netter's ability to draw these balloons from four perspectives. That guy has talent.

One domestic task turned into more than I bargained for. I went into the tool shed to get the lawn mower out. I had neglected the lawn for about a month, and it was lookin' raggedy. When I walked into the shed, I saw a small grey mammal skitter behind a few pieces of wood at the back of the shed. I tried to convince myself that it was a chipmunk as I noticed an empty fertilizer bag in the middle of the floor, a few holes chewed into it. I thought two things. That was a rat and That thing eats fertilizer for breakfast! Well I learned today that I have rat-o-phobia.

After seeing the fertilizer bag, I noticed droppings all over the floor of the shed. I also noticed a strong smell of urine. The droppings were all over, covering maybe 20% of the floor. I started moving the lawn mower out...some power tools...a trash can...some sticks. I got a broom and started sweeping the shed, getting out the old grass, leaves, and presumptive rat pellets. I tapped the pieces of wood, and some scurrying sounds filtered out the sides. The wood had been there since we moved in three years ago. It is a collection of three or four thin boards, cut into triangles as if to fit in the eaves of...well, maybe of a tool shed. I finished sweeping the pellets, and some abandoned clay insect nests. Intelligent horror played with my mind.

I hate rats!

I thought of Stephen King. In his book On Writing he describes his muse (after cocaine) that gets a horrific thought really going in his imagination. He wrote something about imagining something in his laundry room, and wouldn't it be really scary if... Well I don't have King's imagination (or his muse), but I do have enough imagination that I imagined rats scampering all over the place, getting on my boots, clawing up my socks, biting my flesh. Uuhhh. It gave me shivers then, and it gives me shivers now.

So I took a hoe.

It was one of those two-headed hoes (all the better to fight off those two headed rats that my imagination had mustered), with a hoe end, and a two-pronged pokey end. I hit the triangular boards. Scampering sounds, but it might just be two of 'em. All the tools and stuff are out of the way. They can get by me. I banged the boards again. No scampering. No skittering. No sounds. They're plotting something. I don't think there's a hole in this shed.

Slowly, holding firmly but onto the end of the handle of the hoe, I hooked the hoe end of the hoe around the edge of the deepest board, and pulled them back.

Yuuahhhahfuuuhhhhhhh...

Ahhh!!...Whoa!!...Yaaaah!

Bang! Bang Bangg! Stomp. Punch. Stab. Jolt. Make noise. Vibrate the ground. Do something. Yughch!!!

There were about 20 rats behind those boards, and by the time the wood hit the floor about a dozen rats ranging from adult to adolescent rat-sized rats went running in all directions, which were all in my direction.

Yuuuuuggghhh.  I stood on one leg. I pounded the hoe end of the hoe near them, around them through them. I didn't want to squirt any blood for God's sake. But I wanted them out, out, OUT! Several went for the corners, and I pounded the hoe against the wooden floor there. They ran out. Three smaller rats sat there, grey with black shiny eyes viewing me in my fearful panoramic splendour, armed with a green-headed hoe. They were certainly stunned. I banged the ground near them, and they scampered to the corner behind me. I whirled around, banged the hoe on the ground again, and the last one left, vertical U-turning under the lip of the entrance, and hiding under the shed. Great, now I've got a score of rats under my shed instead of in it.

As I emerged, shaken but triumphant from the shed, I was surprised to see Maggie and her mom were walking toward me, having just arrived from church. They had seen the exodus and heard the banging; they had witnessed the rodent dance. Maggie, the woman of a thousand faces, gave me one of those frowns that belies understanding.

"Rats?" she said.

"Rats, I said, and I quickly blessed myself in the Catholic fashion.

A smile broke on her and her mother's face, and she said, "Yeah, you need to go to church!"

I drove to Lowe's and plotted the murder of my fellow creatures. I purchased Rat-B-Gone or whatever it is - little green bricks of inhumanity that "may result in rat carcasses in 4 to 5 days."

OK by me. Yee'uh,uhhhhh...I get the shivers every time I think of it. 

I mowed the lawn, made some phone calls, brushed up on the autonomic nervous system, with attention to the thoracic cavity, had dinner out with my folks, Maggie, her mom, then watched some of the MTV Video Music Awards with Maggie while I rubbed her back.

She's got the cutest way of saying infraspinatus.