I Know I’m In Africa, but Flying Rats, Really?

Ok, so maybe rats can’t fly. But who knew rats could jump? And I mean really jump like they mean it, like three feet in the air. Well now I know that rats do indeed have a very impressive vertical leap.

Yesterday morning, I was making breakfast in the kitchen when along comes a rat just waltzing across the floor towards me. If this was a movie, I might scream and jump three feet in the air, and the rat would run away. Or if it was “Ratatouille,” the rat would make some human-like motions to let me know that he won’t bite me, and in fact, he just wants to help me cook my breakfast. But sadly, neither of these are what happened. Instead, what proceeded was a battle between me and a pretty good-sized rat. I got my weapon of choice – a broom – and the rat used his God-given defensive tactic of running … fast. For about ten minutes, I chased the rat along the walls, under the furniture, and even on the furniture. All of this came as no surprise.

But when I moved some furniture around and had the rat cornered, he jumped about three feet in the air to the curtain hanging by the window and climbed up to the top. This, I did not expect. After a few daydreams of what it’d look like for a rat to dunk a basketball, or catch a touchdown pass, or win an Olympic gold medal in the high jump, I snapped back to reality and realized I had a perfect chance to take this thing out. So instantly the broom in my hand became a baseball bat, I swung hard and … I hit a home run (or at least a base hit up the middle). But this rat was resilient. It dropped down and started running again. Geez rat, are you made of steel?

So after another five minutes of chasing him around and having him cornered a few times, only to be refused the satisfaction of killing him, I finally steered him out of the house. A little disappointing that I wasn’t able to win the war, but I like to think I at least won the battle. The rat was out of the house, and I could resume my relaxing Sunday morning. If he comes back again, though, I’ll be ready. I won’t be surprised if he leaps into the air, and I’ll be ready to swat him down and bring him back to earth where the rest of us live. Crazy mutant-rat …