Jim

So my mother has been on my case about this blog and all (Hi Mom!) ... and I guess, according to her, the New Year deserves a post or two.  Personally, I wasn't so sure.  2014 had to prove herself worthy of my energy first.  You know, it's awfully hard to rouse myself from doing nothing but stare at the snow outside my window.  I feel like I could write a whole chapter on January so far and title it, "In Which I Shift My Butt".

Anyhow.  The story I bring to you today is one that I have told a few of you with certainly more humor and flair than I was feeling at the time.  This is the story of The Rat, who, for the purposes of my US government monitored blog, we will refer to as Jim, although I won't pretend that I don't have a more private name for him.

Three days ago, I was awakened from a dead sleep when a rat ran across my leg in the middle of the night.  I freaked out so bad I think that my body actually momentarily levitated from my bed before I kicked my leg as hard as I could and sent the rat flying across the room.  Panicked, I sat up, teeth chattering, and pawed frantically along my window ledge for my PC-issued cell phone and flashlight.  By then, Jim had sequestered himself neatly somewhere in my bedroom, God Knows Where.  I tucked myself under my covers again, staring at the eerie vision of my bedroom by flashlight.  Now what?

I can't promise this to be exactly true, but I'm pretty sure it was at least a million hours before I drifted to sleep again, having nightmare after nightmare about rats.  I remember one in particular where I was sure that I was awake, but unable to move as rats came closer and closer and closer.  I was then jerked into real reality by an enormous crash which was Jim knocking large things off of my bedroom shelves as he attempted his own personal scale of Everest.  I am sorry to say that this story does not end with him buried in an avalanche as that certainly would have made me happy at the time.

Panic.  Flashlight.  Nothing.  Jim's gone again.  And I'm awake.  [CENSORED].  Now, in the silent wake of Jim's clatter, I hear a second noise.  Outside of my room, there is a second rat.  There is a loud second rat.  In fact, I can hear it gnashing away at something, and, gauging from the level of noise, I judge this rat to be roughly the size of a rabid wolf.  It's so loud, in fact, that it wakes my host aunt and uncle up and I can hear them opening their bedroom door across from mine and discussing in hushed voices what to do.  They wake my host nephew.  All three of them stand in the hall outside of my bedroom as if they have any hope at all of finding Ratsaurus on the completely unheated second story of our house at 4:00 am in the morning.

I lie silent in bed.  I have four options:
a.  Do nothing.  Sleep with Jim for the rest of the night.  Pray not to die of Hantavirus.
b.  Alert my host family that I've got a rat too.  Invite a 4:00 am forensic exploration of my bedroom.  Pray host uncle does not find feminine products.
c.  Wait until host family goes to bed, then attempt to go sleep downstairs, which is also unheated.  Most certainly die of exposure in transit.
d.  Open my bedroom door and hope Jim leaves.  Offer up firstborn child to God to gain assurance that this act will not simply invite Ratzilla in.

In an obscure throwback to Pokémon and the 90's, I choose Hantavirus.  I've read that it has a 1 to 5 week incubation period, which is significantly longer than I would live in any of the other situations.  (Dear Peace Corps: I'M KIDDING).  Dear family: But really ...

The next morning, I stagger down to the kitchen to tell my host mom all about Jim.  Her solution?  We wait until the sun comes up over the mountain high enough so that the house warms up a little (this is about 2:30 pm), we open my East-facing bedroom window, and we place a rat trap on the floor.  Then we lock my bedroom door with Jim inside for hours so that he DIES.

We attempt this, but no Jim.  His location became a mystery until this morning.

This morning I awoke to World War III: Rat Edition as my host mom and my host aunt ripped the entire upstairs apart.  Apparently Jim had managed to keep my aunt up all night this time and she was less than pleased.  To hear her gleefully tell the story, my host uncle is terrified of rats and actually made her get up first this morning to bang on every item in the room and declare the space "all clear" before he would agree to get out of bed.  But, that's beside my point.  I listened to the chorus of screams and bangs and horrified cries of "I SAW IT!  AHHHHHH I SAW IT!" for a solid twenty minutes until they apparently managed to drive Jim out into the cold of our balcony.

And that, my friends, is the heartwrenching story of Jim: A cold, lonely plague rat looking for love.  If you are finishing this story with an uneasy sense of closure, if you are pondering about the whereabouts and home base of The Ratinator Largest Unseen Rat Known To Man And Loudest Eater Ever, let me tell you ... so am I.  SO AM I.