To the dead rat in my holiday crate

Disclaimer: This is a true story about finding dead rats in my garage. For those of you readers who may be disgusted by this (I am when I think about it) and never want to visit my house, please remember that we all have the equivalent of a long-dead rat somewhere in our lives. And if you don't, you’re either in denial or we can’t be friends because you are too damn perfect.

Dear Willard,

As I searched through my garage on Christmas Eve, looking for Josh and my stockings, I stumbled upon a crate full of holiday decorations. At first I was excited (paydirt)!

And then I saw the droppings.

And then I saw grey fur.

And then I ran in the house and said to my husband, “There’s something that I’m afraid to look at.” And God bless him and the United States of America, he confirmed my nightmare as I stood convulsing with the heeby-jeebies on the threshold to our kitchen. And then he removed you, and threw away the crate and everything. He said your corpse was light; you had probably been there for a long, long time.

I know that after we had the exterminator run you and your kind out of our attic and garage last April, we should have done a full clearing and shop-vacced the crap out of our garage. But then spring turned to summer and early pregnancy, and morning sickness, and blah, blah, blah Monkey Brain, and since there was no more scratching in the walls or on the ceiling, we kind of forgot about you and yours.

And then, Josh found the baby rat dead in a box by our underused Bowflex (Really, universe? You think I’m going to work out in that space without having panic attacks?). And then we cleared out some garage space and found a crate with evidence of you and your family. Clearly you were hungry if you felt the need to eat half of my heating pad. And while I appreciate how easy you made it to sort through that crate (EVERYTHING IN THE TRASH!!!), we didn’t have the energy to go through every crate and box that has been sitting in our garage since we bought our house in July 2008.

And then, the Christmas spirit had to take hold of me and I wanted to find those damn stockings. I’m really glad they weren’t in your crate; it would have sucked to throw out my mom’s hard work.

I hope it wasn’t long and painful. Josh and I have been wondering, were you clocked by the rat trap near our water heater and then wandered around in a daze until your little body just curled up and died? Please tell me that there are no more of you, because there is a baby tub on a high shelf that I am really scared to pull down.

Sincerely,

Monkey Brain