pale kon RAT

When you learn to speak Haitian Creole, I mean REALLY learn to speak it, people will start to tell you that you pale kon rat, literally, "speak like a rat."  You don't just communicate...you can chatter!


At our house, Matt pale kon rat, and we always joke that I pale kon sourit...like a mouse.  When I came home from work today, Lily was singing away in Creole, and ran to me, yelling, "Mama!  Ou zanmi mwen!"  (Mama, you are my friend!)  She'll be speaking like a rat before much longer.


However, at our house, it is our rat that talks most like a rat.

And he's driving me crazy.


For a few weeks now, he has been messing with me...living behind our oven, eating our bananas and oranges in the night, scurrying about every time I enter the kitchen, chewing holes in my screen, leaving muddy rat prints on my counter tops, and banging about when the oven gets too hot for him, scurrying over my dinner and running out the screen holes, scaring me every time and grossing me out.


A few mornings ago, I had had it.  I made muffins to justify turning on the oven, heated her up, masking taped over all the holes, blocked the countertops leaving only a small pathway to a huge bucket barely propped open so it would fall over the rat when he ran in, and armed myself with a long wood spoon.  


Lily and I waited 30 minutes, and just as Noel joined us, he popped out, ran for his hole, found it blocked, and started darting around the kitchen while I whack-whack-WHACKed with my spoon, screaming all the while (I just can't help it...I've been a girl for too long) while Lily screamed and jumped up and down and Noel looked on, amused.


A few moments later, he pushed through my taped-over hole and leapt to his freedom.  


Infuriating.  


Noel of course started laughing, and I said, "What?  You don't have rats at your house?"


Oh no.  I learned that Noel has dozens of rats in her woven stick home.  So many rats that they aren't afraid of people, eat their food, and even nibble on Noel's feet and fingers while she sleep.  


However, Noel shared with me what her family does for fun in the evenings...a game they call Smash.


Because tons of bugs, mosquito and dust can come through the woven stick walls, her family has papered the inside of their walls with newspaper, magazine pages, etc.  So, when the rats come in at night, they run between the paper and the walls, and pop out the bottom to enter the home.  


Noel and her family (8 siblings and her parents), while hanging out at night or while lying in bed, try to predict the paths the rats are running and win points by smashing a rat between the paper and the wall...10 points for an injury and 50 points for a kill.


This would have grossed me out five years ago.  By now, I was laughing hilariously, picturing Noel's very serious and mild-mannered family playing this family game...wishing I could find a way to SMASH my rat!


I enlisted Phil and Don (a record-holding rat killer) last night to take the smart guy out.  Extensive conversations about 99 ways to kill a rat led to Phil's desire to start a rat-killing ministry for the people of Saccanville, and then led them to borrow some traps from Dodo and Bubba (who also have a rat or two living behind THEIR oven), rigged 'em up, and we went to bed expectantly.


This morning, both traps were licked clean with not a hair to show for it, and I must admit to giving them quite a bit of sass today about their failure.


After more plotting, this evening they rigged up a salami-bundled-in-saran-wrap-rubber-banded-to-the-trip-tray system, put one trap in the oven and one outside the screen, and not twenty minutes later... >SNAP<  


Sweet victory.  


Twenty minutes later.  >SNAP<  Two down in less than an hour...  Never thought the >SNAP< of a rat trap could be such sweet music.   


I have had several gory photo opportunities with several grinning men.  I have decided not to share.  You're welcome :)


I'll give you a tally in a few days!


Got any good rat stories?