Projecting thoughts of murder onto helpless rodents

Every night as I’m falling asleep I hear mice running around in the attic above my head. I’ve lived with this for a while with no problem, especially since I never actually saw a mouse (except that one night when I was eating a big spoonful of peanut butter in my bedroom, but I practically lured it out – I mean come on. Who can resist the smell of peanut butter? Not me). At first the noises were very soft – the sound of little, tiny, cute mice scurrying around above me. Sure it made me feel dirty and slightly violated, but compared to the noise of the neighborhood cats having sex at all hours of the day and night? No big deal (have you ever heard cats having sex? Traumatizing. The sound of scurrying mice pales in comparison).

But the noises soon progressed to what sounded like slightly larger mice moving furniture around in the attic. That creeped me out a little more – especially the slightly larger part. The moving furniture around part? Weird, but manageable.

Now they seem to be getting progressively larger, more aggressive, more determined to break through the wall and perhaps chew through my skull while I’m sleeping. It’s not enough just to scurry around and re-arrange furniture. That will not do for these mice – or rats, or squirrels or some kind of rat/human half breed, who knows! – no. These…THINGS…scratch against the walls, violently, like they’re trying to get in. They’ve had enough of the smelly furniture upstairs and they want an upgrade.

Banging against the wall used to deter them – it used to send them scurrying through the walls and I wouldn’t hear from them again all night. But now – I bang on the wall and they stop…for a second. Then they start again. I bang again. They stop. And then start again. Just now I took a plastic DVD case I had laying around and banged it against the wall like a hammer and that seemed to work. For now. But they’ll be back.

I feel like the fat guy in Jurassic Park – the one that keeps trying to figure out a way to stop the dinosaurs from getting stronger and smarter, but he’s always one step behind them. And do you remember what happened to him? HE GOT EATEN. By a little (and, if you remember, cute!) dinosaur. Take a lesson from the fat guy. They always teach you something.

I’d ask the maintenance guy to do something about the problem, but considering the fact that he recently repaired one of my windows by pouring concrete it in and the fact that anything he touches suddenly becomes either 1) aesthetically violating (see aforementioned fixing-a-window-with-fucking-concrete incident) or 2) a much bigger problem, you can understand that I am hesitant to do that. He’d probably see busting holes in my walls and ceiling as a practical solution to the terrorizing sounds of rat-children trying to attack me through the walls. Because then they wouldn’t have to try to get in – there’d be a nice little rat-child sized door for them.

So no. Instead I think maybe I’ll hook up a contraption – one where I can pull a string while laying in bed that will connect to a hammer up by the ceiling where the rat-children are trying to dig a hole to civilization. The hammer will then connect directly to an electrical outlet so that every time the hammer strikes the wall it will simultaneously hit a conductor that will cause an electrical current to go shooting through the wall. Not enough to kill the rat-children, I mean, I wouldn’t want to kill them. But enough to scare them. And hurt them. Bad. That’ll teach ‘em to mess with this crazy bitch.