Animal Intruders

A rat in the attic is driving me mad, and other critter tales from the Deep South...

Maybe you noticed (more likely you didn’t), but I’m a month late on my editor’s note. If you noticed, I’m sorry. My life seems to have sped up lately, like I’m listening to an audiobook at 1.25x. The ideas come, I grasp at them, wanting to pen them to paper, but soon they float away, out of reach. I thought I might write about my recent garden walks in Greenwood Cemetery, or the phenomenon that is POLLEN SEASON (but, really, doesn’t “pollen season” speak for itself?), or the way the flashy bloom of azaleas seems so at odds with the annual sh*t show that is our state legislative session. But then I heard the skittering of tiny claws, the chill-inducing scuffle of a creature moving in the ceiling above my head, and all remaining ideas left my body.

There is a rat in our attic.

As I write this, my dog whines and growls and I shush him so that he doesn’t wake the toddler who just went down after two requests for milk, one request for blueberries, one plea for daddy to remove the monsters in her hamper, and a fifteen minute trip to the potty. At least her white noise machine drowns out the rat’s aerobic activities.