A Message to His Friends

The First Essential Scary Truth

 

I spent a lovely couple of hours chatting with my friend Patty last night.  The conversation was, per usual, all over the place, as any chat between two old friends will be.

 

Just as my battery began to run out, Patty confided in me that she and her husband were fighting a nasty rat problem.  “The guy next door did some work on his sewer, I guess he hit a nest or something because now, we have rats in the house,” she said.

 

My cell kept cutting in and out so I could barely hear a few of the stories she told me afterward and had to hang up.  Having been to their house on the northern North Carolina coast, I can attest to the fact their home is immaculately kept and the work she and her husband have put into the home has only increased its value.  So why oh why are these good people afflicted with rats and what should they do?  Perhaps a Passover style extermination of the problem is in order.

 

Being a New Yorker, I have of course had vermin in my home the same reason Patty and her family does: construction next door.  Living on the second floor means easy access in New York City, no elevator wait, an easy out if someone detonates on the curb, good stuff.  But it also means mice, termites, cockroaches, when a warm place is needed, will nest in the house.  Due to our technological issues, I never got to tell Patty how I dealt with my mouse issue, so here goes.

 

I had just got off my shift working a lower east side boozer and was simply looking forward to falling asleep.  Around 5:00am, I heard a squeak and angrily got up to find a large mouse, big ears, short tail, the whole shebang, looking at me from a corner.  I grabbed my frying pan off the top of my stove and cornered the little thing before he could get to his escape hole.  He looked at me with those little black eyes, begging, in his own way, to be let outside or just let go so he could run to his escape and wake me, squeaking again.

 

This may have worked with Wilma Flintstone when she finally got off the chair once Fred caught the small cute vermin that scared the hell out of her but me?  I hate Mickey Mouse and always rooted for Tom to catch and eat that damn mouse.  So, when he squeaked once more, I brained him with the black, Kevlar frying pan and left him as a message to his friends.

 

Since that fateful winter day in 1998, I have had no more mouse or rat problems.  Admittedly, finding any hole the little shitters cold get through helped but you have to tell them who is in charge or they will run you over.

 

Patty, I hope this helps.