Mobile, Alabama: It's Baaaaaack

 

Banksy rat. Source: Infrogmation via Openverse via Creative Commons

 

Eek? 

Back here, I had a likely critter in my kitchen, as circumstantially-evidenced by slashed bags and spilled spoils. Took defensive measures with my inelegant elegant solution. 

A few weeks later, I learned that another resident had an, erm, visitor. All of a sudden, it seems. 

I commiserated with her, of course, all while being grateful that it was now SEP. 

Until a recent night.

I was at my 'desk,' facing the kitchen. The louver doors to the kitchen were open, the kitchen light on. Suddenly I saw a critter move sprightly across the kitchen floor. And, no, it was not a cute little mouse, like that one in El Paso. No, it was a rat. Not as large as one imagines in major metropolises. But bigger than a mouse. A longer tail than a mouse. 

And when I yelled out, "Hey!" it didn't scamper away as fast and as appropriately respectfully as a mouse would have. I'm pretty sure it almost paused. Took a moment to consider whether it would comply with my implied command to exit. 

On one hand, I'm glad to have closure on the open case of the nefarious goings-on in my kitchen. 

On the other hand, this is yet another example of how ignorance really can be best. Typically, I keep my kitchen doors closed and the light off. It happened that on this night, the doors were open and the light on. I'm sure the rat's been poking around every night all along and I simply didn't know. 

Couldn't it have waited til I left in just a few weeks?

 

Note: For anyone without the cultural reference for "It's Baaaaack," I take you back in time to 1986. Poltergeist II: