The Rat

Dear reader,

I know I've been telling u the never ending story of the two weirdest weeks of my life but today, i wanna tell u a different story.. one that has nothing to do with the weeks that were.. its about today and the stuff that built up to this day. Its the story of "THE RAT"...

DAY1

About three days back, i was up late at night publishing another one of my posts while chatting with my IM friends online at the time.. It must have been around 3 am. I don't really see the time when I'm at the computer.. ESPECIALLY at night but i think it was around that time. And sitting for a long time at the desk obviously tired me and i went to the kitchen to get myself a bottle of water. Now, you must understand the layout of our kitchen to really understand this story... From the door, there's a fridge on the right, followed by the kitchen counter complete with a stove and a rack for some utensils near the window where the room ends just before which, we keep bottles of water at room temperature. On the left is a whole shelf where most of the groceries are placed after which there are some more utensils on a hanging rack and the basin.

I marched into the kitchen to get myself a PET bottle and just as i picked one up... BANG!
Now, i know that might sound very loud here but it wasn't an explosion. And no bottles hit the floor either. But.. IT WAS HORRIFIC. From out of the blue, and for the first time in the EIGHT years we've resided at this house, I SAW A MOUSE.. and not just any other mouse.. it was in all probability, A RAT! And after falling from somewhere around the water purifier (my best guess as to where it came from), and the moment it saw me, that thing ran back up from the shelves and into the cupboards over the counter (i.e. at the top of the ceiling!!) THAT THING CAN CLIMB.. Which made us believe that the only way it could have entered the house was though the kitchen window, and the cupboard was where he had set camp .

A rat wouldn't generally freak me out much but seeing once up THIS close after SO long was overwhelming. I know A LOT of people who would scream at the sight irrespective of the time of the day! What it did do however, was gave me a weird stare from its "campsite". That look was intimidating. So much so it was almost certain to me that it would pounce onto my shoulders if i took even a step to grab the bottle i had dropped to the floor on seeing him. To maintain the peace (and not cuz' i chickened out), i opened the fridge, which was in my half of the kitchen, took out a bottle which felt frozen and REALLY REALLY cold and walked out of the room, closing the door behind me.

DAY 2

The late hours of the night had crept in again. This time, at 2.30 am (yes, i saw the time), i wanted to get a bottle of water (again! i LOVE water, i guess) before i went off to sleep (I like having a bottle in the room in case i get up at night and need some). I walked into the room, this time with a torch in my hand, shining its bright, almost xenon-like lights in the direction i would flash it. And when i aimed it at the bottles in the corner or the room, i saw ITS eyes. Staring down the light as if it were staring at the sun. But it didn't move. This was no ordinary rat, it was a different, superbly intimidating kind. One i had never come across ever before. It scared the living daylights out of me. And i don't know why, i was the only one in the house to have seen him. It was like he PICKED me be his target! Anyway, i repeated the drill from the night before and went off to sleep after checking for rats in my room.

DAY 3

Now it was getting out of hand. I had put a bottle of normal water in my room at 8pm to avoid confronting that stupid THING at night and told my parents to KEEP THE KITCHEN DOOR SHUT! They did. Dad was up till about 1 watching the news and nothing went wrong till then. I thought to myself that perhaps, my little friend had called it a day and found a new CRIB for itself.

I was wrong.

I don't know what was up with this rodent and the 2.30 deadline. Ive heard of werewolves but what the hell was this!? Again, though i tried ignoring the watch, at the strike of 2.30 am, while i was playing a round of counter strike on my computer, in a moment of silence, I heard an unusual sound from the kitchen. Something, maybe a box or so, had fallen. There was not a wind blowing outside and the kitchen door was closed. My parents were both asleep too. I had to get up and check on this. And so i did. While standing at the door, i saw a container of garam masala had toppled from the shelf over the stove onto the floor. IT WAS BACK. As i went to pick the box up, the BEAST squeaked, looked at me and from the top of microwave and the extension of this shelf, ran back to its shed. Lightening had struck not once or twice, but three scary times.

TODAY

Finally, my parents were convinced about the inhibition of the rodent. Afraid it might destroy our kitchen supplies, my mom, dads helper and I set out on a mission. GET RID OF THE RODENT IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE! We shut all the doors to our rooms. And the helper started cleaning out the stuff from the shelf the rat had set camp in. A few sightings of him led to another discovery. This rat was purely non-vegetarian. The only food supply he kept upstairs were a few bones we had thrown into the bin after dinner a few days back. But nevertheless, we took the stuff out, one at a time... Once most of it was out and it started running around, i was handed a stick and the responsibility to beat it against the shelf's wall so as to scare it away to the adjacent door where the helper stood ready with an empty sack we had gotten rice in. A few hundred beats later, it jumped out from the opening, onto the helpers shoulder and to the ground, jumping over the sack successfully.

After this, we spent about an hour continuously tracking it down and then trying to shoo it out of the open door after we realised he was too fast to be caught in a sack. But it just wouldn't give up. I don't know but i reckon he was on some weird drug and his testosterone was sky-rocketing! It ran from point A to B to E and back to B before going to points X Y and Z!!! It went crazy!! And it went everywhere but outside the house!! UNTIL.. Yours truly used his brains.

See, this rat made us clean up most of the mess the house was in (blessing in disguise, truly) and in doing that, a lot of useless boxes had stacked up in the drawing room. Or so the other humans in the room thought. I stacked up the oxes and blocked every way the rat could and would have gone. With one last bang, we got it to sprint, only to find a box in his way. He turned to the other way and guess what... a BOX awaited. After a third such incident, it took the only way it could spot. About an hour and a half after we started the mission, i declared it SUCCESSFUL!

The work wasn't over there though. We had to make sure it wouldn't try finding a way back home. Now, i stay on the third floor. This thing ran down half a flight of stairs and climbed a pipe that's used as a guide-rail. After the helper dashed behind it to shoo it away, it jumped onto the wall and clung on! And surprisingly, started ascending upwards, almost like a Lil rock climber. expertly manoeuvring its way through. I dashed up to the next floor with a broom to knock it down and when i saw it, in a sudden blink of an eye, the helper took a ball of mud from the plant on the balcony and knocked it down all three floors!! I saw it plummet to the ground with a wry smile on my face. My nemesis had gone. I was victorious and the war was over. Finally tonight, i can grab myself a bottle of a desired temperature and not have to worry about a rat pouncing on me!!!

:D

\m/rock.in.peace\m/