The youngest son of our field director and his wife is an adorable sandy-haired 7-year old who could pass for Dennis the Menace. He does a pretty mean impression of Kip from Napoleon Dynamite (his "Peace out," complete with sideways peace sign, is spot-on), and he loves playing guns with his two older brothers.

One of Mikey's favorite expressions is "Rats," uttered with a hint of mischeviousness whenever one of his devious plans has been thwarted.

I'd been meaning to share this cute little anecdote with my readers for quite some time now. The timing couldn't be better, though; Mikey's cute "Rats" quip is the perfect little introduction for a decidely less-cute update.

Yup, you guessed it. We have rats in our house. One's hiding behind the fridge right now. I first spotted a rat on Wednesday night, though I wasn't quite sure if it was actually a rat, or if my mind was playing tricks on me. Jeremiah confirmed it last night, and since then we've discovered how they're sneaking into the house. The entrance happens to be, of all places, in the entryway to my bathroom. Great...that's just super.

Hopefully we'll be able to take care of this problem in the next day or so. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the peaceful co-existence of human and rodent. But I do hate a freeloader...these guys think they can come in and live here, without paying any of the rent? Huh-uh. They gots to go.

...

OK, how's this for a live update? No sooner had I finished that last paragraph when I heard some rustling behind the shelving unit next to the fridge. I jumped to my feet, grabbed my flashlight, and started shining it underneath the shelves. To my amazement, the rat just sauntered out like he owned the place. To be honest, I thought he was actually kinda cute. Still, I stood about six feet away and started yelling at him, telling him he couldn't stay because he was a bad roommate--eating our food without permission, leaving a mess, not paying rent, etc etc. Well, the showdown lasted a good minute, and then--in what I thought was a ballsy move--the rat just walked over to the corner where we keep our bottled water and cans of soda. He jumped up on two cans of Diet Coke, and by this point I called Jer to come in and see this. I thought he was going to get away, but instead, he started wheezing sporadically. He wasn't planning on going anywhere. He must've found some poison or something akin to it. I started to feel kinda sad for the guy.

But not sad enough to not make light of his predicament. (to my PETA readers: please forgive me for what you're about to read.) He was hanging his head over the other side of the Diet Coke cans, and it looked as though he was sticking his head in a toilet after a long night of drinking. Jer had gone to get his camera at this point, and, well, if history has taught us anything, it's that I can't resist setting up a funny picture. I pulled out the bottle of Cockburn's that we'd just purchased, and set it next to him. Jer found the can of Guiness and the rip-off Corona from the same purchase, and laid them on the floor next to our sick little friend. Laughter and picture-taking ensued. We then waited until he stopped moving altogether before we disposed of him (I mean, we do have some decency).

...

Now, our rat problem isn't over, lest you think otherwise. The one we just found wasn't the same one that Jeremiah spotted yesterday, and there's still a way for them to get in (I'm going to work on that tonight). But finding this one was a bit of a relief; I'm not as edgy as I was two hours ago.

Let this be a lesson to anyone who ever told me I was a brave person for coming here: the fact that I get freaked out at the prospect of rodents running rampant in our house should prove how "brave" I really am.

Huh. This post turned out to be a lot more entertaining that I originally expected it to be.

UPDATE: OK, for all you twisted individuals: