So we have a rat in our apart\u00adment. At least some of the time.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not cer\u00adtain of this, but our best guess is that he\u2019s a refugee from our neigh\u00adbors\u2019 place<\/a>. They\u2019ve been try\u00ading to evict a rat for months.<\/p>\n And last night Paula and I saw him in our din\u00ading room.<\/p>\n We set out traps. He ate the food off of them and laughed at our anti\u00adquat\u00aded tech\u00adnol\u00ado\u00adgy. He must be a stain\u00adless steel rat<\/a> (how\u2019s that for a gra\u00adtu\u00aditous geek ref\u00ader\u00adence?)<\/p>\n Our oth\u00ader neigh\u00adbors have cats, and so we asked for a cat toy to set out. We were oper\u00adat\u00ading under the the\u00ado\u00adry that rats fear cats and that the smell would dri\u00adve him to safer realms. Alas\u2013this is a bold rat who enjoys play\u00ading with cat toys.<\/p>\n So as a last-ditch effort, Paula and I are resort\u00ading to psy-ops.<\/p>\n We left a note on our neigh\u00adbors\u2019 door to woo him home.<\/p>\n \nDear Rat,<\/p>\n Please come home. Our food is organ\u00adic and bet\u00adter-tast\u00ading. Also our kid is cute and wants a pet.<\/p>\n With much love,<\/p>\n Dirk & Emi\u00adly\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In a very can\u00adny move, how\u00adev\u00ader, our neigh\u00adbors demon\u00adstrat\u00aded that they have careers in coun\u00adter\u00adin\u00adtel\u00adli\u00adgence in case oth\u00ader things don\u2019t pan out. The fol\u00adlow\u00ading was affixed to our door, direct\u00adly fac\u00ading the note that we had placed on their door.<\/p>\n \nDear\u00adest Rat,<\/p>\n Ignore the sign on the oth\u00ader door\u2013they just want to kill you! We looooove you!! And our kid is at a devel\u00adop\u00admen\u00adtal\u00adly appro\u00adpri\u00adate age to appre\u00adci\u00adate rodents. The oth\u00ader kid will try to eat you. Or your poop.<\/p>\n Love,<\/p>\n The Davis\u00ades\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For\u00adtu\u00adnate\u00adly, Paula dis\u00adcov\u00adered a hand\u00adwrit\u00adten mis\u00adsive from the rodent at large which she deliv\u00adered to Emi\u00adly moments ago.<\/p>\n \nDear Davis Fam\u00adi\u00adly,<\/p>\n Thank you for your hos\u00adpi\u00adtal\u00adi\u00adty. You place was a great vaca\u00adtion spot. But now that the Robin\u00adsons are back I think I should go home. After all, win\u00adter is com\u00ading and their kid would be more use\u00adful in a bliz\u00adzard, if you know what I mean.<\/p>\n I appre\u00adci\u00adate the thought behind your note, but I know the Robin\u00adsons quite well. After all, we share a bed\u00adroom (heck, some\u00adtimes we share a futon).<\/p>\n Signed,<\/p>\n The Rat\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yes, it actu\u00adal\u00adly says, \u201cSigned, The Rat\u201d at the end. Rats don\u2019t get much instruc\u00adtion in writ\u00ading let\u00adters at ele\u00admen\u00adtary school.<\/p>\n Any\u00adway, I\u2019ll keep you post\u00aded as devel\u00adop\u00adments war\u00adrant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So we have a rat in our apart\u00adment. At least some of the time. We\u2019re not cer\u00adtain of this, but our best guess is that he\u2019s a refugee from our neigh\u00adbors\u2019 place. They\u2019ve been try\u00ading to evict a rat for months. And last night Paula and I saw him in our din\u00ading room. We set \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cRat-Pong\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-64","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}