Defeated ROUS

It is currently 2:30 am and I just bid my husband adieu as he whisked out the door in dress shoes and shorts with a gardeners glove on one hand and a pie-pan covered home depot bucket in the other.  Out of supreme kindness to me he is driving about a mile away to say farewell to a little friend. 

Why this ensemble?  We have had a rough time sleeping tonight as the girls have been taking turns with late night wakefulness.  After my "shift," as it were, I came down for a delightful apple snack.  After cutting my apple I heard a noise behind me and noticed the cupboard door slightly open.  Note, we take great measures every evening to ensure our little house guest has no access to our edibles.  He is required to procure his own or move out!  Hence the "fruit helmet" colander over our bananas every night.  I went over for a closer look and a tail swished out of the cupboard.  Slamming it shut in alarm (this was our closest encounter to date) I looked around for a means to better entrap him.  The broom!  Propping that up on the counter was insufficient, so I pulled out the most accessible and heavy appliances in reach, the toaster oven and juicer, stacked them, and ran to assemble some rat catching devises.  Armed and ready with a large bucket, broom, and the shutters I have been painting for the playhouse windows, I ran upstairs to awake Byron.  The battleground was primed and ready.

Byron jumped to action when he heard our illusive guest was ready to move out.  After gingerly peering into the cupboard, his plan was to reach in and grab the ROUS.  This scarred me, so he assented to wearing a glove.  He made several attempts to pull out our little friend, when suddenly the rat literally seemed to fly over our heads and into the sink.  Byron followed just as quickly and suddenly the creature was trapped.  We tried to contain it in the bucket by sliding a cutting board under, but the silly thing ran into the garbage disposal. 

This is the part where I got scarred and had to leave the room.  If you were a man with a rat trapped in the garbage disposal, what, pray tell, would you do?  Blessedly, Byron didn't do it, but rather turned on the water and sought to trap the little bugger once more in the bucket.  Of course it climbed out when the water came on and Byron had it!  Success!!  Hence, the lovely ensemble as me sweetheart stole from the house, ROUS in tow, for the finale of this co-habitation portion of our life.

As Byron returned home, he chuckled that the rat didn't want to give up his home easily.  My dear husband hand driven away to a undeveloped area and climbed a hill to release the house guest.  After sliding it out of the bucket the creature turned around and jumped for Byron in a final effort to return to it's posh reside under the kitchen cupboards.  Apparently Byron kicked blocked it with his foot and ran back to the car, eager to return to bed and end this saga. 

Now, I wonder how many of my dish towels and baby bibs have ended up in that inaccessible location under the cupboard.  I guess I'll never know.

The END!!