Number Eleven: Catch a rat

Not sure how you could orchestrate this yourself, but it actually happened to me. And it's fairly ironic given what I was talking about in Number Four...

One evening, whilst I was actually motivated and in full flow, my housemate stood at the bottom of our stairs and screamed the kind of blood curdling, catroonishly long scream only ever emitted by women in no perceivable danger. The previous week we - or more to the point, she - had discovered that mice had managed to invade our kitchen cupboard and much their way through our newly acquired supply of "healthy food" (Rivita, oat cakes, couscous, Weetabix - the last one was my token effort) and so we had invested the weight of our hard earned financial debt in Europe's supply of tupperware boxes. Ha. No more expensive munchies for you my little rodent friends. But being the inquisitive and persistent little blighters that they are, they went on the look out for food elsewhere. Which is what led to the accoustic bombardment of my eardrums, rodent vs. architect stand off and ensuing (and elaborate) chase around the house. I'm 5'8" ish, this thing was no more than 1 1/2" (although my housemate swears it was more like 8", which means I don't hold out much hope for her boyfriend...) but still the little bugger won. We tried cornering, trapping and at one time even hammering (although I couldn't bring myself to do it) him. So we decamped to the local curry house for food - given that we had none left ourselves - and bravery-instilling booze. The next day traps were ordered and set, and after hours of research by myself, naturally, a sonic erradicator was installed. And life returned to normal.

Until a week later.

When in full flow again following the interruption a few days before, the gnawing sound returned and I - stomping down the stairs to confront my old adversary - was confronted with his significantly larger cousin. The only retaliation was to sit on the stairs, call housemate's boyfriend to stand guard and pass the phone from the other side of the kitchen, research pest control (for which Lee from Contract Killers came as my knight in shining rentakil uniform) and to move out to housemate's boyfriend's house for a week. I don't know why I like mice and am severely bothered by rats, I just am.

All in all at least 4 hours chasing mouse, 2 hours researching traps, 2 hours in curry house, 1 1/2 hours recovering from copious, complex and gratuitous consumption of bravery-instilling booze, 1 hour spent shaking on stairs, 1 hour waiting for rock and roll pest control, 1 week in housemate's boyfriend's house. Not a bad thesis/avoidance tactic ratio, I think you'll agree.