Final Straw

Ok, the rat is back and he has tools. I sealed the holes with steel wool but all night he was scratching and trying to chew a new hole through the wall. It was like this:

scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch scraaaaaaaaaaaaaatch... scratch scratch scratch scratch... scraaaaatch...

Needless to say I barely slept all night and left the kitchen light on and my bedroom door closed. My dog was no help. As he gets older he just gets less wily and more apathetic. He kind of reminds me of Aslan, that lion from Narnia who is old and wise... and kind of lazy and just lays there. Jesse is like that sometimes. He looks big and old and regal, but when he lumbered up to the wall last night and shoved his nose right up against to where the rat was scratching, he just turned around and looked at me like, "Sucks for you", and hauled his weary bones all the way to the bedroom. So after I locked us safely in the bedroom, I was awoken every two hours because that's how loud the thing was. I mean, I had nightmares. Finally in the morning I had the guts to investigate, and from what I can tell, it hasn't yet broken through. But it will.

I have the exterminator arriving tomorrow prepped with rat killing tools, but my landlord said she thinks it might be a trapped squirrel.

Personally, I think it might be magician/illusionist David Blane, practicing his next trick of escaping walls by levitating.