Peter Krupa

(Previously: Prologue, Day 1, Day 2)

Ona wanted me to buy poison. She wanted to get glue traps and air rifles and maybe rent a cat (craigslist?). Her mother (my mother-in-law) would arrive in a few days, and the rat, she said, was getting the better of me. There was a bit of drama.

“Maybe you’re just drawing this out so you can write about it on your blog,” she said.

The thought had crossed my mind. But I preferred to think of rat killing as at once a battle of wits and a process with rules, like a bull fight. One of us would end up dead - in this case, the rat by my hand or me at the hand of my wife.

Sure, the bull fighter could expedite things by using firearms, just like I could sprinkle anti-freeze all over the building. Yet no one likes to pay money to watch a man in tight pants and a funny hat murder a bull so efficiently, and likewise my landlady probably wouldn’t be so happy if I inadvertently poisoned her small dog.

No, the contest would continue. Ona would have stomped off into another other room if we didn’t live in a studio apartment. Marital bliss hung in the balance (not really, but work with me here – I need a story arc).

The next step in this battle of wits, therefore, wasn’t to change tactics completely but to adjust the ones I was using. The rat safely licked the peanut butter off the trap triggers because, firstly, the traps weren’t set delicately enough; and secondly, peanut butter is practically a liquid, and no fatal tugging/gnawing/finagling is required.

I resolved that second problem with canned anchovies that had been languishing uneaten in the cupboard. A chunk of that smelly, stringy stuff mashed good and cleverly onto the trigger seemed irresistible, though I resisted. Then after a few false starts, I set the traps on “whisker-touch” mode. Put them in the usual places. Then we left.

***

And so the story comes to an end. When we got back a few hours later, I found our little friend caught right on the bridge of his nose, eyeballs protruding, limbs splayed stiffly in what must have been a spasm of surprise.

I took pictures. Ona kissed me. Ding-dong, the rat is dead. We celebrated because, hell, any excuse to celebrate. I was a little sad to see the contest come to an end so quickly, and Ona suggested that I drag the “rat” saga out by posting fiction, or I guess these days we could call it “embellished memoir,” and not tell anyone about the “embellished” part. Sadly, I declined, due to time constraints.

Oh, but we left the other traps set. Just in case.