We Sleep Naked...........................

Some nights you can't be woken even with the house falling around you ... Some nights you hear a noise and you are awake and alert, just like that .... The first noise was the cat pat-pat-pat pat pat pat ing across the floor at 2am in the dead of night ... Not an unusual sound as George the cat often has a little play through the hall and into our bedroom ........ But then again the pat-pat-pat pat pat pat ing... Well thats too light for George so must be Mickey the cat for a change..... MICKEY !!!! Micky only plays if she has a mouse to run after ... AND She's in our bedroom ........

I just knew something was worse happening even then .... She suddenly bounded onto the bed beside me scaring the living beejeebus out of me ... .Pains in my chest turned out to be a pulled muscle from the reactive spasm as I leapt across the bed ...... "My heart !! The cats killed me" I'm groaning to McD as she's woken from her slumber ...

The cats not put off by this though .... Still on the trail she's now knocking books and stuff off the bedside cabinet as she stands atop looking down between the cabinet and the wall ..... Well .. no prizes guessing where the mouse is then ...

I crossed the room and put the main light on - I want to see properly for this exercise .... McD is now also up ... I'm back across the room again to the bedside cabinet .... As I start to get closer I grab the baseball bat thats coveniently handy beside the bed on my side... I peer down the gap beside the wall , eyes still a little bleery. Can't see anything at first and then realise I was looking too far down ... In beween the fallen books and water bottles there's a face with black black eyes looking directly up at me ...... It's a rat.... and my nose is little more than 6 inches from him ...........

Now I don't know if you've ever been in this position before, being face to face with a rat - I have on a couple of occasions - the one thing that always hits me is that this is an intellegent being looking back at me ... The other thing is that this intellegent being shows little fear in these situations ...... And then finally the "OOHHHHHH BLOODY HELL ITS A RAT !!!" explodes involuntarily from your mouth as your head recoils to a safer distance ......... McD is now fully awake and cursing in what I beleive to be many different languages and possibly many different voices too as the reality sinks in ....... WE HAVE A RAT IN OUR BEDROOM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A rat with pointy ears and long sharp pointy teef !!!!

McD is now saying 'throw the cat in' .... The cat on hearing this wants no bar of it and shoots off in the opposite direction and out of the house ... the catflap left swaying behind it as it exits the house ..... I think about using the base ball bat in a stabbling motion to pummel the beastie if not to death then at least an unconscious state... I peer back into the gap .... The rat's still looking back at me ..... no fear ...quite calm really - I know it's saying to me "Well we have a problem don't we...... You aint getting the chance to touch me and I don't know the way out ... So whatchya gonna do big guy ?? "

The chances of me getting a good shot with the bat are minimal to 'you have to be kidding' .... Sod it ...I start to reach down to move some of the debri .. .Rat retreats to behind the cabinet and then while I'm still moving things I realise he's just circled to the back of me and come in past my feet and arm to where he was in the first place ....... He might have no fear, but I do and again retreated hastily ..... Rat again made a move and is now under the bed ......... "Can you see him ??" I ask McD ... "No ! " " Well we have to get him out somehow...get down on the floor and look woman........" ...McD is now on all fours looking under the bed ....

"Well - That a little more of your posteria than I need to see this time of night" I comment to McD....as she's now head down and Bottom up as they say ...... "Oh very funny" ... "There's a rat in the bedroom you know" ..... (i've put McDs posteria picture in at the end....:O)

" I can't see him..." She tells me

I look around the room . No sign of him ...

"I'll lift the bed up " I announce

"He's still not there !!!

"Bugger......Where the sam has he gone !!!!! "

"McD will you see if you can get me a clear jar from the kitchen ...."

While waiting for Mcd I'm thumping around the floor trying to get the rat to flight again ..... Then I saw him ..Trying to get out from under the table but the gap there wasn't big enough ... (While I'm thinking how McD might react with a pointy toothed devil running down the hallway towards her the rat decides to abandon those efforts and take cover behind the bedside cabinet on McD's side of the bed !!!

McD returns with a clear plastic cookie jar ...Looks the part .... I take it and wedge it on the floor between the cabinet on my side and the wall at the back ..... Now again thumping around to make the rat run ....

He finally took flight and as predicted back to my side of the bed ...and Straight into the jar !!!!

"where's the lid !!! "

"Too late never mind " ...I make a rather brave dive I thought and upturned the jar with the mouth down on the carpet . Then seeing a sheet of paper on the floor (I do sudoku's before I fall asleep) I pulled the jar over the paper ..... I now have a trapped rat in a jar with the only thing betwen it and my hand being a bit of a4 paper !! .....

The rats now resigned to his fate and again showing little fear sits there looking out at McD and I .....

I could just put the lid on and suffocate him ... But with that not being an option just what else can a naked man with a pissed off rat in a clear plastic jar do ??

"I'll just let him go outside" I tell McD ... "He can beat the cat up another day" .... So off we go to the ranch sliders at the front of the house that lead to the decking ..... I didn't go to the back door ... I should have I guess but with Mickey the cat being out there that side I decided not to .....

As we passed through the lounge there was George the cat just waking up !! "This is your job!!!" I tell him as I thrust the rat in front of his face ...... The rat, on his hind legs as they do had started to clean his face and now all curious looks straight at George.... George got the fright of his life apparrently as the next thing he's stood high on all four sets of claws and then like a fat streak of grey he's gone ...out of the house ....the cat flap left swinging as he exits the house ......

Well we were impressed.............

So there I am at 2:30 in the middle of the night, naked as the day i was born heading outside onto the decking away from the door . It's raining and windy and barely above freezing......I lay the jar down and retire quickly ......

"you could have brought the jar back in " in McD complains....

"Yep - I could have........but the rat wanted to wait for the rain to stop" i replied.........



This is the Rat...In the Jar....Camera must have been asleep at the time as all the piccs were blurred...........







Oh!!! I lied about the picc of McDs posteria........:O)....But if you really want to see it let me know. I'll see what i can do :O)