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I saw a rat in the kitchen this week. It was quite a surprise. I would have just run out of the room, shut the two doors to the room, and left it to go away somewhere, but I had only saw it for a split second before it ran to hide and I figured I should get an idea of its size. My room mate would want to know so he knew what size of trap to get. So I grabbed a broken boom handle/stick thing and was going to poke the box it was hiding behind. Before I did, I figured I should let one of the cats into the room so they could see what was in there and maybe make the rat not want to live in our house. The youngest one was the only one to come in. She went over to sit on the floor between the stove and the counter next to it. While standing as far away as I could, I then poked the box. The first poke didn’t do anything. The second poke did. The rat darted out, ran across the room to where the kitten was, I assume became surprised/terrified by the predator sitting there, jumped around, and then ran out of there and went behind the fridge. The cat was surprised by the creature just as much as it was by her I think. She came out of the space she was in really quick when the rat ran in. The two being so close gave me a good idea of how big it was though: a little less than half her size. The kitten isn’t a big animal herself, but I think the rat is pretty big for a rat. Then again, I’ve only been around one other rat before, which was in a biology class in highschool.

Anyway, not a great thing to have a rat move in. I told my roomy that there was a rat in the house via text, and while waiting for a reply I put the dog in the kitchen. I figured the presence of predators would make the rat not want to live here, and I’m sure the dog would bark and/or whine if she saw the rat. My room mate replied to my text, and we spoke back and forth a few times. He couldn’t get a trap for the rat this week, so we just moved all the food in the alcove where we usually put dry-stock into a storage bin in the dining room. While moving things, we inspected everything to make sure nothing had been gotten into by the rat. Unfortunately it had gotten into two boxes of food, so we had to throw those out, but everything else was fine. Neither I nor my room mate has seen the rat since, but ever since seeing the rat, I’ve been wary about going into the kitchen. Before going into the room too far, I keep checking to see if anything is moving around the fridge or where the box is. I am tempted to just leave the room open so the two cats can maybe kill it, but I don’t want the thing running around the house, and it could possibly hurt one of them.

So, yeah, a little bit of excitement this week. Other than the rat, not much has gone on. We found out the rent for next year is probably only going up about thirty dollars, which isn’t huge, but we don’t do great right now when it comes to the rent, so something is probably going to have to go or I’ll need a job. I’ve wanted a job for a while, as I’ve said, but I haven’t been able to get one. I’m hoping my room mate will give me a little more of a helping hand in the search (and maybe some approval) because without it, we’d do even worse. And even though we’re struggling now and the rent increase isn’t good, it’s still better than anything I or my room mate was able to find online or in a local paper. I even looked for places to live in other cities! I couldn’t find anything for cheaper than we’ve got here. I guess we’re lucky to have this place. Wish it wasn’t surrounded by the graves of former pets though... Anytime I go outside I see the places where they’re buried and feel pangs of guilt...

Lastly, I’m still not done with that coloring page I mentioned last week. I’ve been procrastinating... Bad Turnilk! Get it done before next week's entry!

WC:
F01 = 13693