Unwelcome Visitor

Just this past Thursday, I was sitting in the common area of the doctor’s quarters watching a little news or soap opera (which is prime time tv here) when out of the corner of my eye I saw movement from the sliding glass door that leads out to the patio. Looking that direction, I saw a rat. It obviously had no clue that I was there, so I decided to scare it outside. As I got up it ran out of sight. So went to where it had been hoping to close the sliding glass door so that it wouldn’t get back in the house. Unfortunately what I found was a closed door, which meant the rat was making its residence somewhere in my living quarters.

I decided one of my missions for Thursday night, was to get this rat out of doctor’s quarters. So, noticing the only place this rat could have gone was in the drawer tower of the desk, I decided to open the sliding glass door and grab a pool stick to flush this rat out. Slowly, not wanting a rat to run up my leg, I pulled the desk away from the wall. Only to find no rat, which I was extremely puzzled about thinking surely it had to have been under the desk. So I scanned the area, to make sure there wasn’t anything else the rat could be hiding under. Then I realized that the draws of the desk were shorter then the tower they were in. So clearing out some space around me, I slowly pulled out each of desk drawers.  Nothing in the first one, then all of a sudden as I pulled out the second drawer the rat jumps out the back of the drawer. Running around to the back of the desk, I saw no sign of the rat. But, I had the sliding glass door open, so after searching the other draws, I figured the rat had ran out open door.

The next morning, I was boosting to my house mom about how I had taken care of the rat and I was feeling good. Friday evening, after going out to a concert, I got home and was ready to unwind and watch some tv, I grabbed the remote and sat down. Out of the corner of my eye saw and then heard some scurrying and a thump. Immediately I know that I had not taken care of my rat friend last night, and I was so thankful that I hadn’t sat on the couch closest to bookcase (which is where the rat had jumped down from and where I normally sit).  So I grabbed my pool stick and was ready for round two with this rat. I opened the sliding glass door and pulled out the drawers to the desk, give the rat a hint of where it needed to go. Not being sure of where it went, I decided my best bet was to flip all the couches to make sure it had not gone under them. Moving the furniture around, I started flipping them one by one. Finding no sign of the rat under any of them. So I decided the only other place it could have gone was under the bookcase. Using my pool stick, I swept under the bookcase and out the back jumped the rat. It tried its hardest to find a place to hide under the couches to no avail. So it tried running around the room, finding somewhere to hide, as I followed it with my pool stick in hand. After trying for the desk, it turned back towards me and that was it. One hit and I won the round. Not sure what to do with it, I decided I would throw it onto the patio for all the other rodents in the area to take into consideration before coming into the doctor’s quarters.

This has been one of the first times, since being here that I had an “I am in Africa moment.” Which is funny because isn’t not like I haven’t had run-ins with rodents in the States. I’m sure it would been quite a scene to see me chase this rat around doctors quarters, trying to avoid having this rat run up my leg and trying to take it out at the same time.  I can recall just a few times that I have had an I am in Africa moment. Three of them have been with animals. The first would be the above mentioned, the second was when I was at a restaurant with some friends and a flying cockroach flew into my face and then landed in my lap. Which made one of my friends jump onto her chair and almost fall into the lap of the gentlemen sitting behind her at the next table over. The third was with a gecko in the bathroom. I was pulling on the toilet paper and all of a sudden out of the roll jumps a gecko. It then proceed to climb up the wall and until it found its way out around the door.