DeuteRATomy 7:1-2

"Well, human beings are remarkably adaptable species."

I casually explain as my parents' concerned expressions turn perplexed while clicking through photos of my "home" in Thailand (it only makes sense to them if I use finger-qoutes with each reference). So, I don't have a western toilet, nor any kitchen or bathroom sink to speak of. So, there are cracks letting light seep in from the outside between every plank of wood that make up my walls and I don't have a ceiling or windows with any screens or glass separating me from the outside world. So, so, so... I've learned to live in this environment. And not to say it was easy at first. Believe me, I would nervously tip toe across my house, outside to my bathroom at night, trying to minmalize the possiblity of crushing a giant snail under my bare feet. Or cringe with anxiety every time I felt around a corner for the light switch, half expecting to rudely awaken mating geckos in a post-coitel embrace with my finger tips. But my nerves eased and so did my step as I walked through my new home and learned to live with these tropical creatures...or rather, they learned to let me co-habitate with them.

When I first moved in, I decided that I would scrub every corner of my stilted log cabin, as to clearly indicate to the rest of the jungle that this was human territory. I assumed that ants wouldn't enjoy the taste of floor cleaner and that the spiders would migrate as soon as they found their little intricate web palaces destroyed. But it had never occurred to me that the jungle would be territorial. So each day, as I forcibly scooted large Tokeys (pictured above) out from behind my dish cabinet with a broom, I was shocked to see them right back where they started the very following afternoon. Then an "old timer" expat explained that those lizards are extremely territorial and if they were there first, well then, you best be getting their permission to squat. So, I learned to live with the Tokeys and various other creatures for that matter, including a chameleon-like frog and her lover in my shower, a giant poison-pissing toad in my hiking boot on my porch, and a prehistoric looking spider the size of my hand, occupying the space between my squat toilet and the cement wall. Yes, WE lived peacefully and happily for over a year together until THEY came.

THEY = pellet pooping, scratching and scampering rodents shredding everything in their path....the rat.

At first it was no big thing. I would hear them above my sleeping head at night and occasionally spotted one traversing the beams in my living room, but they did no harm. And by this point I was in a rather Buddhist mindset of living harmoniously with the living around me. I even came face to face with one frantically scurrying about my kitchen in search for safety and found the little creature quite cute--mouse-like with a rat tail. But upon coming home from being away in the US for about a month, I threw Buddhism out the door and took on a more biblical approach.

When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations -- the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you -- 2 and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.

-Deuteronomy 7:1-2

Now by "seven nations larger and stronger than you" I believe the author here is referring to the kingdom of rats that had overtaken my entire home. The teak beams supporting my house had become a rodent super highway with the little bastards furiously criss-crossing over each other to get to another side of the house where they would proceed to defecate and fornicate in dark corners. The spare bedroom where I was storing a friend's wardrobe and household goods, had been turned into a birthing clinic with homemade rats nests created from toilet paper and (ironically) tear-proof, weather resistant nylon straps from a new backpack I bought the year before.

I carefully surveyed the damage of their invasion and began plotting my revenge while twiddling my thumbs and emitting thought bubbles chanting "I must destroy them totally...I must destroy them totally." So, I hopped on my motorbike and zipped on down to the TESCO Lotus in town, where I purchased two circular disks covered in a sticky black tar-like substance, one bottle of rat poison to be mixed with rice, small white chalk-like balls that apparently emit an odor far too pleasant for rats to enjoy, and a packet of pink pellets that when eaten make rats extremely thirsty and force them out of your house in search of water...where they eventually die of thirst. Yes, I was making no treaty and showing no mercy.

I layed my weaponry out in strategic locations throughout my house and 15 minutes later, as I was skyping with my mother, I got a bite. The high-pitched screaming and thumping of a plastic disc against the wall caused my mother to ask, "What the HELL is going on over there?" I went into the spare room to examine my prisoner. To his credit (yes, I'm assuming it was a male based on the fact that he was stupid enough to get caught), he had managed to grab a bit of shredded pork from the center of the tar disk and turned around quick enough only getting his hind legs stuck in the goo. So, his front half was hanging off the disc and frantically clawing at the wood floor to rip himself off and scamper behind the bed. Obviously this wasn't working because the large plastic disc just follow him and wouldn't fit behind the bed. So, the little rascal decided it was time for Plan B. Now, he was furiously gnawing at the plastic, I assume trying to eat his way out. It was at this point that I knew he was a man.

So, the trap had done its part, now it was my turn. And that's when I turned to my mom, witnessing this whole ordeal on her computer screen. "Now what do I do?" If I tried to pick up the disk, I had a strong feeling that the little lad would arch back 180 degrees and chomp into my hand in an act of pure desperation. So, my mom suggested that I get a long stick and get one end stuck in the black tar, where I can then lift the entire thing and take it out to the trash can down the street. This seemed like a fine idea in theory. So, my mom, perched on my kitchen table, supported me as good moms do, as I walked an old broom with a squealing, convulsing rat at the end of it, through my house, out my front door, down the road, and to the trash bin on the corner. But as I approached the trash bin, I suddenly realized that I couldn't just let this thing to die all alone in the bottom of garbage bin. Or risk one of the street scavengers being attacked as he collects cans. I know...perfect time to have a stroke of humanity. So, with the quick thinking skills of McGyver, I continued past the trash can, straight towards the stagnant bog next to my house, where I proceeded to force the rat and sticky disc under water with the broom, until the tiny little air bubbles ceased to rise to the surface. Destroyed.

Or were they? I still had the Brady Bunch breeding in my friend's clothes, but luckily for me, baby rats are even more stupid than their parents. Five little tikes jumped head first into another gooey black pit, suffocating themselves in the sticky mess and leaving a much quicker and painless clean-up for me! Then, I got two cats. Destroyed. Totally.