Tonight was dinner with the art group. I’m stuck in the middle of an extra long booth between 2 people I don’t know very well. Out of the corner of my eye, I see it. A rat scurring across the restaurant floor, under a table to a booth maybe 10 feet away from me.

YUCK.

If there is 1 thing I can’t do -- it’s RATS.  They gross me out to no end.  Mice are included in this hatred. So much so, I don’t even really like Mickey Mouse. Sorry dude, I don’t dig rodents.

Not knowing these people that well, I gulp and leave shortly after.

I know that mice/rats are God’s creation -- but they might as well be God’s creation to disturb me. My deathly fear of these things paralyzes me.

When we moved into our home several years ago, we were the only ones in the neighborhood.  A field mouse had gotten in the living room. I caught it out of the corner of my eye one day and for a WEEK I avoided the living room. I tiptoed my way around it. Of course the mouse wasn’t still there. But I just couldn’t do it.

Our garage tends to still attract these rodents. My husband, though I’m not sure he’d admit it, loves playing the cat role and killing these things. Here is his latest rodent catching “technique”. He found this on the internet (of course, where else would such brilliance come from?).

Yes, this is like the redneck version of the board game, Mouse Trap.  You have a bucket, a ramp, a can and peanut butter. The rodents run up the ramp, go to eat the peanut butter, slip and fall into the bucket which is filled with water.

I wish I could say that this was a joke, but the husband swears by it. “I’ve caught a ton”.

Call me paranoid, call me a freak -- just don’t call me if you see a rodent.