I've been reading blogs trying think of something to post, but I'm tired and I feel yucky. So here's something I wrote (a true story by the way) when I lived in East Coast State. (I didn't feel like updating the tense or anything like that either.)
There are some things in life that you just have to experience to understand. One such event is a rat coming out of your toilet. You can watch the videos on the Internet and try to imagine what your reaction will be, but there is just no way to know what level of freaking out you will enact when the time comes. It happened to me, December 9th, 2002, around 9:40 p.m.
I live in Capitol City, near Hippietown, nice houses, lots of shops, and bars. It’s not downtown, but it’s definitely a city block. Capitol City is the most city-like city that I have lived in (no need for a car, bar on every corner and a few between most corners). I have visited other cities for short whiles, like Chicago, Philadelphia - family lives in the suburbs, take a train in, see the sights, use public restrooms, go back and sleep in the suburbs. I am not what you would call city folk. I grew up in the country – woods on all four sides of my “house” that was atop a hill along the gravel road dubbed route 1. There were no streetlights, and every star could be seen. There were no nightly human sounds. I found a snake in my bedroom once; it was harmless. A black bear barred the driveway to my back door once; it was harmless. Plenty of mice had been in that house, but Capitol City was my first rat, a sewer rat at that.
Apparently this sort of thing is a relatively common occurrence, especially in winter (which it was) when all of the snow melts into the sewers (which it had) and the rats go looking for warmth (which they did). I know a lot about this now. I looked it up on the Internet to discover what the appropriate response to a situation like that is, after the freaking out of course.
The appropriate response is to close the lid and flush the toilet, after freaking out of course, and going on a short rat hunt through the house because your freaking out involved leaving the bathroom to say, “oh my god, there’s a rat in the toilet” to your husband, who was on the phone, before you closed the lid. Luckily, you found no sign of the water trail of a sewer rat that had escaped from the toilet, and you thank the aforementioned god that you had been standing when you first saw the rat, and was therefore able to leave the bathroom to tensely say in a calm voice, “oh my god, there’s a rat in the toilet.”
The next appropriate step is to research on the Internet. A google search for the terms “rat” and “toilet” will provide you with all necessary information (including a video that shows a cute rat emerging from a toilet, which is not at all realistic because the rat that came out of my toilet was long, gray, wet, sleek, and scary, not short, fluffy, whitish, apparently dry and cute). You then flush a few gallons of hot water and a few tablespoons of dish washing detergent, because following one of the recommended ways to prevent rat returns (flush several times, flush a gallon of hot water, or squirt a little dish detergent on the inside of your toilet bowl and flush) is not enough.
It is approximately five days before you stop flushing before sitting on the toilet, one week before you decide to take the camera out of the bathroom, two weeks before you sit on the toilet without looking between your legs, six weeks before you dare to linger on the toilet, and four months before you begin to feel relaxed in your own bathroom, on your own toilet. You never forget to close the lid after using the toilet to prevent renegade rats from entering your home. Your friends that have heard of the experience will always inform you that they have not seen a rat each time they use your toilet. The ones that are afraid to use your toilet will always ask if there have been any rat sightings lately. It will never happen again.
When I was twenty-four and living in Capitol City, a rat came out of my toilet; it was harmless.
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