1 January 2002

RAT MY FRIEND  

S. Sivasubramanian

My wife and I being very kind and considerate to life of any form, decided not to upset our unsolicited visitor thinking that it would cease visiting on its own accord.  In order not to disappoint it during its visitations, we decide to keep some food or other for it to eat.  My wife would leave stale bread or breadcrumbs for it to dine on at the fireplace.  The suave and urbane rat would promptly move the food items to the dining table and dine with comfort and style.  It would leave a few droppings here or there to announce its visit and the spots it fancied the most.  Days when we did not provide food to tell it is not welcome anymore, the rat would promptly rummage the trashcan and litter the complete kitchen area.  Those days, its droppings will be all over the room as if despising us for not providing it with food.

We decided with deep heart, a method to declare our rat as persona non grata.  We plugged the hole he burrowed on kitchen cabinet through which he entered and exited with heavy liquid laden bottles.  But the determined rat overthrew the bottles and roamed around the house with gusto.  We discussed with friends about methods of discouraging its visit.  Ideas were toyed from having a cat through to setting traps.  We resisted the idea of poisoning the rat, as it was too much to do a visitor even if it was an unwelcome one.  Finally we decided to set glue pads to catch it alive and let it off far away.  We went to the hardware shop and got ourselves a couple of glue traps and a large trap.

We set the glue trap with a piece of cheese in it and the rat promptly went for it.  Instead of going through the entry orifice provided, it chewed the box through to get at the cheese.  Oops the glue stuck to its mouth and teeth.  It tried getting off the glue by biting off the cupboards.  Not satisfied with the results, its sight fell on my child’s incubator (a project she did using empty egg cartons) and it chewed the soft carton to total destruction.  Suddenly it should have remembered the virtues of flossing that could clean between its rodent teeth, corners of my expensive carpets provided it with the necessary floss.  Unsatisfied with its cleaning, the rodent rifled through the basket in the family room, found a tube of Crest toothpaste and bit through it to have a better cleansing.  Finally, as if to tell us its displeasure in no uncertain terms, the rodent chewed off my girl’s headphones, rummaged our trashcan and littered the entire kitchen and family room.

The next day we were genuinely upset at the hooliganism of our unsolicited visitor.  We decided to eliminate it with our big trap.  The trap had a pedal which when tripped would kill the rat with a big blow.  We set it up with pieces of fine cheddar as bait.  The visitor promptly arrived, inspected the trap and with a flourish, devoured the cheese without tripping the trap, went about enjoying the ambience of its allowed living quarters and left. 

The next morning we were thoroughly disappointed.  I checked the working of the trap by touching it with a plastic spoon.  In a heartbeat the spoon was smashed with a lethal blow.  I thought that I was naïve in setting the bait and must keep the cheese at the rear of the trap pedal for the rodent to push it when eating which would trigger the trap.  So I set the trap in the new way and went to bed.  The visitor came in for the rendezvous.  It carefully inspected the trap, licked clean the cheese without tripping the trap.  It searched out for more food, found the bag of cheese on the fridge top, fetched it, feasted it for its heart’s content and left.

The next morning, my heart sank.  The rodent is playing me up.  Am I dealing with a lesser rodent or a grandmaster?  When I was a kid I used to wonder if the creatures like ants and sparrows ever go to school and universities and get educated.  Later when I grew up, I thought even if such things happen their paradigm would be so different that the arrogant humans would not be able to recognize it.  When men can evolve from being a senseless ape to a creature that could travel to moon and harness atomic energy why can’t the humble animals evolve and become adept in coping with new forms of dangers?  Was this rat telling me something?

For the final time, I summoned all my skills and thinking prowess to fool the rodent into tripping the trap and meeting its own end.  I packed the cheese in glad-wrap sheets and tied it to the trap pedal with metal ties on two directions.  When the rat sinks its teeth in the plastic, it has to pull it in one way or other which should trip the trap.  I also generously sprinkled cheese on top of the plastic package to advertise the presence of food.  In setting and testing the trap I injured my thumb.  The whole operation for the last one-week was like a warfare against a wily enemy. 

The day was the New Years Eve.  I set the trap, kept it on the kitchen table where it likes to dine and went to bed with a heavy heart.  In my mind I was talking to the rodent, “My friend, I welcomed you, I fed you a few times and dropped several broad hints to indicate that you are not welcome in my house.  You were so thick hided (no pun intended) in not taking the hints and now you are all set to depart the earth as we enter the New Year.  Good luck and God bless my friend”. 

The rat came in as expected, licked clean the cheese, sunk its teeth into the bag, pulled it to open it and the trap sprung into action delivering a lethal blow.  The strong rodent struggled to get free, fell off the kitchen table and after some more futile attempts, passed away.

My wife, who saw it the next day, could not resist admiring its long tail, well-formed strong legs and those bright and inquisitive eyes.  A bundle of energy, guile and adventure lay dead in a pool of its own blood.  I was hoping against hope that the rodent would outsmart me once again.  We felt sad as if we lost one of our acquaintances.  Was this rat really intelligent?  Have rats and animals in general have improved their intelligence levels to survive modern threats?  Well besides all these questions of my intellect, my heart says, “My friend, may your soul rest in peace”.