Instructions on Rat Poison
(be sure to wash your hands after reading this)
"Yup" says the overweight New Your City employee "I've seen them draw blood out of babies fingers! If given chance,..day'll bite all de flesh off yer bones an day still be lookin fer more."
The person speaking is a city employee, on the Discovery Channel, fighting the NY City rat problem. He's walking through abandon buildings and placing packets of rat poison under floor boards, behind walls and in the dark shadows where rats appear from, and disappear into. "Why look they even play pool!" he laughs as he enters an all but abandon room, except for a pool table.
Now he's really got my attention, because I have a rat in my yard. And I was thinking of getting a pool table for the house, But not any more! Not if they can play pool! I once saw a painting on velvet of rats smoking and playing pool? Scary!
I have to rid the yard of my rat.
So for two straight weeks I went out of my way to annoyed my rat. If I saw Mickey (Mickey Rat) when I was pulling into the drive I would chase him with the car and honk the horn. I'd fill in the holes he dug under the fence with what my dog left for me in the lawn. I'd yell at him through the widow and make growling bear sounds. Rats hate bears. I even went as far as leaving out some of Aunt Tilley's leftover Christmas cake. Now if I could just get him in a rat sized Christmas sweater and turn the heat up to old person, he would defiantly feel sick and want to leave.
All this persecution and still little Mickey would sit on the fence, rub his belly and lick his little rat lips, as if to say 'Is that all you got fat boy!'
Time to introduce Plan B. Time to step it up a notch and get a finger breaking, rat squishing spring loaded trap. It was time to get that,....but after my last experience with this type of rat removal system I was looking elsewhere. It was so gross! It got so I was throwing the traps away with every capture. And I swear, to you and out loud, that I smashed two fingers for every rat caught.
This time I was going chemical. I was going to poison Mickey Rat with all the killing power science would allow. And science has allowed such a strong poison that when you go to pay for this diabolical rat removal remedy at the rat poison store someone specially schooled in poison is called for over the intercom (no matter how many boxes you buy in any given month) to caution you on it's uses. I was sure my Mickey problem was finished.
Following the direction from the city worker on Discovery Channel, and not the instructions on the box, or the learned person at the rat store, I placed the packets of death along ratty paths under and away from birds, dogs, cats, sheep, cattle, wolves and roaming bison. Two shows may have blended into one as I fell asleep partway through his instructions.
Next day I walked my trap line along the fence, searched under the ever stationary Chevy, looked behind the wood pile, in the lawn mower shed and under a pile of smoldering buffalo chips I could later use for cooking. Seemed funny to me too.
Two packets of instant death had been torn opened. I rubbed my bony hands together and let out a cackle to the sky just as lightning flashed and thunder boomed. I thought that was pretty random and wished someone else had also seen that.
Next day I was on the line again. A bit more was taken from the same two packets so I moved the other two that hadn't been touched to different spots and put out the fire on the one smoldering with the buffalo chips.
But I was still seeing Mickey. Sometimes he was smaller and sometimes bigger and almost a different colour. Must be the dog do-do I'm filling his holes with I thought.
A week goes by and I can't remember where I had placed all the packets of death but the ones I could remember seemed like they were being eaten. So I went back to the store for more. Again the learned poison control person they keep in the back came out and advised me how to use this poison, and stressed I need to read the instructions. I gave her an all assuring nod that I'd read it, crossed my heart, and left.
With all the poison bought and eaten I was sure old Mickey was dead. One taste of this poison should be enough to end any thought of him playing pool. Poison packets are disappearing or lost and after about a month I'm still seeing Mickey. So now it's back to Rat World for more Rat-be-gone.
Barb and I are now on a first name bases at the rat poison store. That's all they sell is rat poison. (Or so I tell the wife. If she knew it was the hardware store I'd be bringing back things for weekend filling chores as well). Barb drones through her legal requirements as I mouth her exact words and then promise to read the instructions, cross my heart and head home.
As I place the new poison packets carefully not to threaten migrating buffalo herds I decide that maybe I should read the box for instructions. And what unimpressed me the most with my science filled packets of instant death was that it wasn't instant. It takes 8 days! My wife's meatloaf could do it in 4! And do you know that rats have mommy and daddy time as much as seven times a day with other mommy's and daddy rats? Plus my neighbour Ron said that at this time of year, with easy access to water it could be even more ineffective. So all during this slow process of being poisoned they're repopulating the neighbourhood. I'm so lucky I have only one rat!
All I'm doing is introducing a harmful diet that isn't even addictive or that deadly to him. It's like us with salt or chocolate only rats are smart enough to say this prepackaged food hurts my stomach so I won't eat it. I know this cause there's Mickey scurrying atop the fence with his crappy dyed fur coat. All I've done is given him an upset stomach for the last two months while he's been doing 50 shades of grey rats.
Now I have seen the damage poisons has done in the past to food chains. A rat dies and is eaten by a cat, dog, cougar (not the lady 2 doors down) bear or buffalo it affects that secondary animal very seriously. But not now. They'd have to eat infected rats for 8 days.
So instead of deadly poison why can't we make them ineffective in the mommy and daddy department? Why hasn't science figured out how to make rats unattractive to each other? Maybe introduce that part from a human into the rat so that it's repulsed by it's own self.
Introduce self loathing into a genetic marker, make them hate themselves so much that they feel no rat wants them (cause we don't!). Take away the desire for mommy and daddy time and make the female nag him. Make them marry! Introduce some genetic code that makes them feel responsible for their offspring. That'll slow them down.
Lord knows its not hard to find a rat in a laboratory. There right there! Get them addicted to heroine or crack. Let them kill themselves with their addictions! And let the dealers and drug king pins deal with addicted rats stealing their supply till they do. After all they have guns and can shoot them.
I think I've brought up several new good ideas to eradicate the grey pool playing rat. I hope that perhaps city hall might take up the cause and use their full city status to pressure the science community into manufacturing a better more effective cure. Cause to tell you the truth I think there's more than just my Mickey out there.
Bob Niles
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