Death by Rat

First of all, I didn't die.  For a few hours I was concerned that if I didn't die, I might at least get very sick, but that didn't happen either. I was fine.

If you're a bit squeamish or have a weak stomach, you may not want to read this. It's pretty gross. Because of another rodent issue yesterday afternoon, I got this horror story on my mind and decided that it needed to be told.

A couple of years ago I got a call from a man who had an unusual situation with a rat. He had put a snap  trap on a block ledge in his basement.  The trap had done what a trap is supposed to do and had caught the rat.  The problem was that the trap and the rat had fallen behind the wall down in a narrow crevice between two walls. And it was beginning to stink.  He asked if I could help him out.

When I got there, I met him at the basement door and he showed me in. The odor was apparent.  I climbed up on a ladder and confirmed with my flashlight that the rat was where he said it was. And there was the  trap on the floor containing the dead rat. The crevice was much too narrow for me to climb into and several feet deeper than I could reach. I had learned with situations like this just to stare at the problem a few minutes until a solution appeared.  And within a few minutes a solution did appear. I asked my friend if I could have a clothes hanger.  He retrieved the hanger and I went to work. I put on my work gloves because you certainly don't want to handle a dead rat with your bare  hands.  You don't want any exposed skin in contact with a rat.  Rats are nasty and carry a lot of wicked diseases. First I extended the hanger until it was straight. I held my flashlight in my left hand and with my right hand I stabbed the rat right in the gut. I then pulled the rat, trap and all, out of the crease with the hanger.  Brilliant maneuver. Mission accomplished.

I had a Walmart sack to dispose of the rat. I put the sack on the floor and shoved the rat and the trap into it.  Still going okay.  At this point, something went terribly wrong. There was a certain amount of tension on the wire when I shoved the rat into the sack.  As soon as the wire was free of its load, it did what wires do that are under stress.  In the blink of an eye, that business end of the clothes hanger, that end that had just penetrated the entrails of a decomposing rat, flew up into my face and bounced off my lips.

(dramatic pause)

I asked him if I could use his restroom and there was one in the basement.  I washed and scrubbed my face and lips with soap and water and washed and scrubbed with soap and water some more.  I took my leave with the rat in the sack and drove away. In spite of the thorough washing, I still couldn't shake the feeling of that wire bouncing off my lips and the thought of where that wire had been just seconds prior to finding my face. It still felt like something was  on my mouth. Here is a short list of diseases caused by rats: hantavirus, hemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis and of course the plague.  In the 14th century 25 million people died of the rat borne bubonic plague. That was one third of Europe's population.  If rats can kill 25 million people over five years, what can one  dead rat do to one person who puts its guts on his mouth?

When I got home I washed my mouth some more.  The next morning I washed my mouth some more. Two or three times that day I washed my mouth some more.  But by now I was beginning to think that I was going to be okay. 

There are times in our lives that things happen that we would never  have chosen to happen.   But then looking back after we've survived, it makes for a pretty funny story.  Dead rat guts on my mouth. Ha! Ha! Really funny!