This Valentine’s Day, love in our house is not measured with candy hearts, boxes of chocolate, or diamond jewelry. Oh no. The depth of my husband’s love this year is measured in rodents. Rats, that is. Dead ones.
One crawled into our garage and then found a way into the attic. We live in south Florida, so when I say “attic” I mean “space between insulation and roof that is only accessible through an 18-inch square panel over the dryer and where the mean temperature is approximately 150˚F.” There are no stairs, no ladder, and no reason to ever go up there, really. Unless there’s a rat.
My husband bought poison and also a “humane” rat trap (set with cheese, no less, like a cartoon mouse trap) that promised a quick and painless rat death. Also, it promised no mess – rat carcass neatly stuck in the trap for you to dispose of easily. He set out both in our garage. Of course, given these options, the rat chose the poison. The slow-acting, give-a-rat-a-chance-to-crawl-someplace-quiet-and-die-in-peace, poison. Die, and inevitably, rot. In the attic.
Have you smelled a dead, rotting rat? One that has found its way into the overheated attic before giving up the ghost? And one who had, just to prove what an unwanted guest he really was, invited a friend to the poison feast, a friend who decided to crawl behind the water heater in the garage before it died?
This is when partnership really takes on its meaning. I consider myself (he’d agree) the neater, tidier of the two of us, but that stench was never going to go away because of me. Crawl behind the water heater, searching for dead rats? Crawl into the attic, searching for dead rats? They have to stop stinking eventually, right?
But crawl he did, armed with a grab-claw (usually reserved for picking up dog poop) and the flashlight on his cell phone. Oh, and the shop vac. I’m never touching any of these things ever again. When he came back in, triumphant, having disposed of rat carcasses, out of love and gratitude, I suggested he burn his clothes.
So there you have it, dear reader. Sometimes love is not about candy or a trite poem in a greeting card. Sometimes it is about slowly fermenting dead rats permeating your house with fetid funk, and a man willing to brave that for you. Sometimes, that’s love. Here, here.
Experimental City 