Rat rage

I’m thinking of something like Road Rage but rather than when driving, it occurs when there is a rat in the kitchen at 1:30am, noisily knocking down the cooking oil and the DOOM. I tried to turn over and go back to sleep: deal with it in the morning, but it clattered over some more pots and pans and sent my heart into palpitations again. I got out of bed, put my stomping boots on and went into the kitchen with a battle cry:
“Aaaaaaarh!”, when I saw it scaling the West face of the cooker in front of me.

I picked up the metal thing I’d used to supprise the last one and proceeded to beat merry hell out of my kitchen, destroying it piece by piece, just like DZ.

I was frantic, not wanting it to run behind the cooker and start the game of hide-and-seek. With great urgency, therefore, I beat the floor, my presure cooker, the kitchen door, the litter bin, etc. with this metal thing that once used to be part of something else. And the little bugger ran round my feet making me twist and turn in my big boots and boxer shorts.

Finally I clobbered it. It lay there on the floor with its legs stretched out akimbo as one would draw a cartoon of a dead rat. I stood, with my heart pounding, breathing deeply and slowly trying to regain a feeling of calm normality after the battle. Few things have ever made me feel like this. Fighting and killing an animal, even a small one like this, is a very emotionally exhausting experience.

And it was a small rat, not one of those as-big-as-a-cat ones you hear about, but just normal somewhat-larger-than-a-mouse size. I picked it up with a plastic bag and pushed it into an empty Skippy jar which I stood by the door to dispose of in the morning. I didn’t want to open the door in case any more came in.